Capstone Team Turns Plastic Waste into Energy

Plastic waste is choking our oceans, killing wildlife, and its nanoparticles are finding their way into almost every living being. Team 24011 is building an apparatus that would turn waste plastic into energy via pyrolysis, an intense heating process. The idea is that it could be used in natural disaster recovery efforts or in very remote locales, to convert available waste to provide emergency power.

“It's thermal decomposition in the absence of oxygen. So it's basically burning it, but without the air,” said Daniel John Hutton, the student project leader and a chemical engineering major. “When you do that, instead of combustion products like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and other greenhouse gases and toxic chemicals, you actually get just the decomposed polymer.”

The energy product from the pyrolysis is a light hydrocarbon, which is a hydrocarbon with a low molecular weight, like butane or propane. “We’re essentially taking the plastics, which have been created from crude oil, and turning them back into a something like gasoline or diesel that can power a generator,” said Hutton. “The main environmental benefit is removing plastics from the environment in a virtually emission-free way, and you have a negative net carbon effect as you’ve removed it from sources that were already contaminating the environment.”

The team is working hard to have a prototype ready for Craig M. Berge Design Day on April 29. “That’s the plan. Hopefully we can even have visitors bring their own plastic waste to toss into the machine,” said team adviser Raphael Lepercq. “It might take a few hours, but they could come back and see the fuel that was produced from that trash.”

Learn more about Team 24011's pyrolysis apparatus project here.