From the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Plastic shopping bags make a fine diesel fuel, researchers report
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Plastic shopping bags, an abundant source of litter on land and at sea, can be converted into diesel, natural gas and other useful petroleum products, researchers report.
The conversion produces significantly more energy than it requires and results in transportation fuels – diesel, for example – that can be blended with existing ultra-low-sulfur diesels and biodiesels. Other products, such as natural gas, naphtha (a solvent), gasoline, waxes and lubricating oils such as engine oil and hydraulic oil also can be obtained from shopping bags.
Credit: L. Brian Stauffer
A report of the new study appears in the journal Fuel Processing Technology.
There are other advantages to the approach, which involves heating the bags in an oxygen-free chamber, a process called pyrolysis, said Brajendra Kumar Sharma, a senior research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center who led the research. The ISTC is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.
“You can get only 50 to 55 percent fuel from the distillation of petroleum crude oil,” Sharma said. “But since this plastic is made from petroleum in the first place, we can recover almost 80 percent fuel from it through distillation.”
Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic shopping bags each year, according to the Worldwatch Institute. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that only about 13 percent are recycled. The rest of the bags end up in landfills or escape to the wild, blowing across the landscape and entering waterways.
Plastic bags make up a sizeable portion of the plastic debris in giant ocean garbage patches that are killing wildlife and littering beaches. Plastic bags “have been detected as far north and south as the poles,” the researchers wrote.
“Over a period of time, this material starts breaking into tiny pieces, and is ingested along with plankton by aquatic animals,” Sharma said. Fish, birds, ocean mammals and other creatures have been found with a lot of plastic particles in their guts.
Whole shopping bags also threaten wildlife, Sharma said.
“Turtles, for example, think that the plastic grocery bags are jellyfish and they try to eat them,” he said. Other creatures become entangled in the bags.
Previous studies have used pyrolysis to convert plastic bags into crude oil. Sharma’s team took the research further, however, by fractionating the crude oil into different petroleum products and testing the diesel fractions to see if they complied with national standards for ultra-low-sulfur diesel and biodiesel fuels.
“A mixture of two distillate fractions, providing an equivalent of U.S. diesel #2, met all of the specifications” required of other diesel fuels in use today – after addition of an antioxidant, Sharma said.
“This diesel mixture had an equivalent energy content, a higher cetane number (a measure of the combustion quality of diesel requiring compression ignition) and better lubricity than ultra-low-sulfur diesel,” he said.
The researchers were able to blend up to 30 percent of their plastic-derived diesel into regular diesel, “and found no compatibility problems with biodiesel,” Sharma said.
“It’s perfect,” he said. “We can just use it as a drop-in fuel in the ultra-low-sulfur diesel without the need for any changes.”
The research team also included Bryan Moser, Karl Vermillion and Kenneth Doll, of the USDA National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, in Peoria, Ill.; and Nandakishore Rajagopalan, of the ISTC at the U. of I.
The Illinois Hazardous Waste Research Fund, and the Environmental Research and Education Foundation supported this study.
Editor’s notes: To reach Brajendra Sharma, call 217-265-6810; email bksharma@illinois.edu.
The paper, “Production, Characterization and Fuel Properties of Alternative Diesel Fuel From Pyrolysis of Waste Plastic Grocery Bags,” is available online or from the U. of I. News Bureau.
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Recycling of plastic bags would seem to be preferable to the petty tyranny of municipalities banning the bags. If you recycle plastic bottles, why not bags? Just encourage people to do it – and DON’T FORCE THEM TO USE PAPER BAGS THAT ARE DIFFICULT FOR HANDICAPPED PEOPLE TO HANDLE OR SO-CALLED REUSABLE BAGS THAT ARE NOTHING BUT CONDUITS FOR FOOD-BORNE DISEASE. As a handicapped, immune-compromised person myself (survivor of leukemia and a bone marrow transplant), I resent the hell out of some narcissistic city councilperson making needless difficulties for me, and even endangering me (and others in similar circumstances) just to prove they can. Ever try to handle a paper grocery bag when you’re using a walker? Have you got a 300-degree steam press in your house to sterilize “reusable” bags? (Washing machine won’t do it even with chemicals.) Banning the bags is just another display of environmentalist tyranny, tied in like everything else with AGW.
It’s to deter shoplifting.
In Seattle, Safeway now charges a quarter for each large, sturdy plastic bag. I recycle them by bringing them back into the store for reuse on the next visit. They’re superior to cloth totes in that they can be rinsed out–and they don’t harbor and incubate bacteria. Washing cloth totes consumes enough energy to make using them self-defeating from a green perspective. Plus, they hold only 2/3 or less of what the new sturdy plastic bags do.
(I acquired a large supply of the old flimsy plastic bags before they were phased out, to hold my garbage.)
@RogerKnights –
Who pays for the extra cost incurred by lower-income people for the bags? A quarter as bag may not seem like much to well-to-do people, but for little grandma in the bad neighborhood already having to choose between feeding the grandkids she’s raising and paying her electric bill, it’s just another unreasonable hardship and burden to bear. Seems to me the people who advocate these reusable bags should reimburse their cost to the people victimized by them. Wealthy leftists never think about what their “environmental” and “energy” policies do to poor people – they don’t feel a 25c bag, but little grandma s does, and her grandkids do.
Oh irony of ironies: Our new “single-stream” recycling system from Waste Management specifically prohibits plastic bags from the recycling bin! I must to put the plastic bags in the regular waste with any liquids and loose food waste – they go straight into the landfill.
When might this guilt trip stop ?
I already put twice (maybe 3 times) the mass into the recycle bin as the landfill bin.
I drive around in my dread SUV (it snows in Chicago),I see the garbage the pigs have thrown out their windows.
When it lands in front of my house I put it in the recycle bin.
I’m not doing any damage, and don’t feel guilty about the plastic garbage bags I send to the landfill, lest they escape my recycle bin, and start blowing around the neighborhood.
If you really want to turn them into fuel, I’ll save them for you, knowing it makes YOU feel better.
wayne Job says:
February 12, 2014 at 9:45 pm
“I go BS and a waste of time on this one. Problem is if your dear leader gets a sniff of this he may pass a law mandating 30% recycled plastic in your diesel fuel, then fine companies for not complying. wether it is available or not.”
The problem with Wayne’s statement is that a person might read this and think he is just trying to be funny. Maybe he is trying to be funny. Still, the reader ought to know the USA has already tried this sort of thing with a cellulosic biofuel mandate.
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/court-strikes-down-cellulosic-biofuel-mandate—finds-epa-exceeded-statutory-authority-188400251.html
I feel that the biggest practical effect of recycling is that the concept of “waste not want not” is reinforced in the younger generation.
In the UK the supermarkets sell more robust bags that can be re-used. I always have several of these in the car and I take them with me whenever I shop. I have not used a disposable plastic shopping bag in years.
Not true that plastic bags “sizeable portion of the plastic debris in giant ocean garbage patches that are killing wildlife”.
According to the Plastics At Sea Project: “In most cases it is impossible to know what kind of object the plastic pieces came from. The most recognizable pieces are fragments of fishing line and industrial resin pellets (the “raw material” of consumer plastic products).”
http://progcontra.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/carrier-bag-scepticism.html
@catcracking says:
February 12, 2014 at 9:09 pm
Depending on the quality of the crude, 20 – 35% of the energy value of the feed is burned just to distill the crude.
i re-use my plastic bags in a myriad of ways.
what i can say is, for a year or so, every person at my local supermarkets were using the fabric ones sold by the stores, & now i never see those bags. no doubt they got grubby & people got sick of washing them & so on.
Josh Matthews says:
February 12, 2014 at 7:56 pm
I do not understand why it is not a law to recycle things such as plastic bags.
Because America is not (yet) a fascist country.
If America recycled everything possible not only would prices of many things be lower but we would also be saving the planet.
Seriously? Everything possible? Firstly, some things are in abundance and do not need to be recycled. There is enough oil to last so many generations into the future that we have plenty of time to develop alternative technology by the time it runs out. A bit like when we transitioned from the horse and cart. Secondly, recycling often requires multi-fold more energy (not to mention chemicals to break the thing down) than to simply produce something new from raw materials. Try a little research outside of your “save the planet” camp. Start with some science.
I have found a use for all the carrier bags I get.
I put my shopping in them the next time I go to the shops, only when they are falling to bits do I get another. I do the same with the paper bags from the green grocers.
James Bull
I need about four bags to hold $80-worth of groceries. Since (as I mentioned) I re-use them when I return to the store, that’s a one-time cost of only $1. That’s bearable.
Where I come from, trash is burned in power stations. Back when plastic bags were free, the bags would help fuel the fire automatically. Then they put green taxes on the bags, so now they have to pour oil on the fire to keep it going.
Adam says:
February 12, 2014 at 8:57 pm
That is ALL part of the Command & Control process. To make everyone feel guilt about living! That we’re damaging the “environment” as a result of our modern lifestyles! So it’s perfectly natural after watching a few David Attenborough programmes, to feel “less” guilt by us “all doing our little bit!”. In fact the eco-stalinists despite their pretence to support “the science”, that’s the stuff that supports their narrow view of life, actually hate science & engineering, because Human resourcefulness & ingenuity solve problems that are brought to our attention! The just hate that kind of thing because there’s another scare story biting the dust!
Outtheback: It’s a British saying….”look after the pennies & the pounds will look after themselves!”
😉
Out the back says…….”Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves” is the old English proverb. Interpreted by the young now as… Never mind settling the credit card, just sign up for another one and transfer the balance. The shock comes in a year or three when this has been done a dozen times and quite a bit of interest has built up…. Me, here in England and very old shall try to stick to the old ways! Such pleasant memories of when I was made so welcome by eveyone I met in Chicago some years ago and in the then prosperous Detroit.
Fred Love says: @ur momisugly February 12, 2014 at 8:10 pm
With the average plastic bag weighing in at 5-10 grams, the 10 billion discarded each year might be pyrolysed to around 50,000 tonnes of fuel. Sounds a lot until you realise that this amount would fuel the US for about 15 minutes. And how much of that fuel would be used in collecting, baling, transporting and pyrolysing those bags? Just more “junk” science?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The real problem is the cost of collection and processing.
Plastics can be recycled too but you chop up the chain lengths and have Polyethylene or Polypropylene =======> Candle wax. So this is actually a better idea.
The last problem is idiot regulators. The plastics company I worked for, as the last process step stripped the short chain polymers from the plastic. This produced a liquid called “Waste oil” that made dandy fuel. We were going to put in an electric generator and use the “Waste oil” to produce electricity. The state said NO, it was a toxic waste (It wasn’t) and had to be disposed of by a company called Clean Harbors.
Even worse, a sister plant we had just purchased had the technology that would allow our ‘Waste oil’ to be used as feed stock. Again the state said NO! it was ‘Waste’ from an industrial process hand had to be disposed of as waste by Clean Harbors.
Our process was not good at conversion so only about half of the monomer got converted. That was a heck of a lot of good clean oil that got incenerated as ‘Waste’
Having the mind numbing task of dealing with idiotic regulators and worse than useless regulations in the state of Taxachusetts and seeing the useless waste in time, money and raw materials just about turned me into an Anarchist!
How long before there is a federally subsidized program to produce plastic bags just to convert them to diesel fuel?
“You can get only 50 to 55 percent fuel from the distillation of petroleum crude oil,” Sharma said. That’s Mann talk if I ever heard it. Crude on average refines to 46% Gasoline, 31% Distillate, 9%Jet Fuel, add residual fuel and propane and you are over 90% Yield. See link
http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/pet_pnp_pct_dc_nus_pct_m.htm
Check the answers to some energy questions.
http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=24&t=10
By the way … talking about diesel fuel. It seems that the ‘winter’ grade diesel fuel being sold in the United States is only good down to -20 Celsius (-4F). In colder temps the diesel ‘gels’ and clogs the fuel filters. Maybe the bio-fuel mixed in to it has something to do with it. .. In places like Montana there aren’t any signs at the truck stops to warn the truckers, even if the temps *are lower than -20C. … If you are interested a trucker is complaining about it here :- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PswiYmEIgg
Do they consider the cost of collecting and transporting the bags?
I always proposed that burning rubbish, including plastic bags, to produce electricity was better than landfill. This is an even better idea. Not sure if it is ”NEW” though.
Many plastic bags are made from corn and turn to dust in a few years.
For those promoting paper bags over those cheap T-Shirt style plastic bags… To make an equivalent paper bag takes about ten (10) times the energy. As for paper bags deteriorating in the anaerobic atmosphere of a landfill — I don’t thinks so. I would give references — but the information is widely available via google search. Yes I have consulted to both the plastic and paper industries.
Yes plastic bags do deteriorate — a little corn starch does it.