Clyvia Inc. announced Wednesday that its wholly owned subsidiary, Clyvia Technology GmbH, successfully converted 3 metric tons of plastics into 528 gallons of diesel fuel.
A mixture of three kinds of plastics were used: plastic sheeting used for agricultural purposes, industrial waste plastics produced during the manufacture of electric fencing and plastic materials sorted from domestic waste collection. These materials were first heated to a temperature of 270 degrees C and then fed into the pilot plant reactor. Once inside the reactor, the plastics were subjected to the fractional depolymerization process that is similar in operation to the cracking of crude oil.
Initial gas-chromatographic analysis of the resulting product has shown that the fuel produced meets the quality requirements for diesel and heating fuel. A sample batch has been submitted to an independent accredited research laboratory in order to confirm that the resulting product conforms to DIN norms.
Although the test run was conducted using a mixture of different types of plastics, it is expected that once the plant begins permanent operation, the various types of plastics will be processed individually. Isolating the different types of plastics will allow greater control over the quality of the output product produced.
Following the large scale waste oil and plastics trial runs, the pilot plant’s reactor was dismantled in order to conduct a functional diagnostic of the reactor parts. Tests will be conducted on the individual residues inside the reactor and the interior of the reactor will be checked for deposits. Once these diagnostics have been completed, a decision will be made on whether or not the process can be refined even further before the plant is put back into operation.