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ThermoFuelThermoFuel: The Plastics-to-Diesel Conversion ProcessOzmotech Pty Ltd. in Melbourne, Australia is the manufacturer of the ThermoFuel technology that converts several types of residual plastics to diesel fuel. This low sulfur, high quality fuel is suitable for use in any diesel engine, as well as industrial or highway applications. The latest generation of Ozmotech's technology emerges from nearly a decade of refinement and improvements from the original process deployed in six plants in Japan, culminating in a 22 ton per day (t/d) machine.  The conversion of plastics to synthetic diesel fuel operates with minimal emissions from start to finish, since the system is a closed loop; i.e., all gasses produced during the conversion process remain inside the system and are re-used as fuel along with natural gas in the unit's heat source - a methane-natural gas burner. The only stack emissions produced by the machine are those from the burner, and typically require an air permit only because of their volume, not because of any noxious fumes produced by the process. The conversion process from the energy value in the plastic to the energy value of the diesel fuel is near 100%, with the only waste product produced during the process - other than the stack exhaust gasses - being the pass-through of inert material clinging to the feedstock when it enters the machine's inlet. This char is non-toxic and can be sold as topsoil or used as daily landfill cover.  Because the feedstock contains little to no sulfur, the product diesel fuel is ultra-low sulfur, meeting all current standards for highway and mining diesel fuel. The fuel is also high quality in terms of cetane (the octane equivalent of gasoline). The cetane value of the diesel fuel produced during the factory test in Australia for the conversion unit being deployed in Ireland was 57, and the minimum cetane value required for the retail sale of diesel fuel in the US for highway use is 40. |