Circular Logic: Sustainability of the Plastic Life Cycle

Haldor Topsoe recently announced, via press release, a partnership with Dow to turn waste plastics into circular plastics.

“Circular plastics” was a new phrase to me, so, naturally, I Googled it.

TIP: Google® what is circular plastic

One result of the search … The World's First 'Infinite' Plastic, an excellent article by Katherine Latham appearing in Future Planet, 11th May 2021.

Excerpts appear below, one of which describes the fundamental concept. Conventional recycling sorts like plastic with like plastic and creates second generation plastic from the like plastics. The problem with this approach is that the second generation plastic is a degraded form of the original. Plus, sorting the plastics in the first place is quite labor intensive.

An alternative is chemical recycling.

Quoting from the article …

“Chemical recycling is an attempt to recycle the unrecyclable. Instead of a system where some plastics are rejected because they are the wrong colour or made of composites, chemical recycling could see all types of plastic fed into an "infinite" recycling system that unmake plastics back into oil, so they can then be used to make plastic again.”

This approach has the potential to create a truly circular process … in other words, circular plastics.

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[ EXCERPTS ]
The world's first 'infinite' plastic
Future Planet
By Katherine Latham
11th May 2021
The way we normally recycle plastics is a downward spiral of waste and degraded materials, but there is another option – turning plastic back into the oil it was made from.
   Instead of a system where some plastics are rejected because they are the wrong colour or made of composites, chemical recycling could see all types of plastic fed into an "infinite" recycling system
This process – known as chemical recycling – has been explored as a viable alternative to conventional recycling for decades. So far, the stumbling block has been the large amount of energy it requires. This, combined with the volatile price of crude oil sometimes makes it cheaper to produce new plastic products than to recycle existing plastic.
Much of the plastic that could be recycled – such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is used for bottles and other packaging – ends up in landfill. This is often due to confusion about kerbside recycling or contamination with food or other types of waste.
Other plastics – such as salad bags and other food containers – find their way to landfill because they are made up of a combination of different plastics that can't be easily split apart in a recycling plant. Litter dropped in the street and lightweight plastics left in landfill sites or illegally dumped can be carried by the wind or washed into rivers by the rain, ending up in the ocean.
Chemical recycling is an attempt to recycle the unrecyclable. Instead of a system where some plastics are rejected because they are the wrong colour or made of composites, chemical recycling could see all types of plastic fed into an "infinite" recycling system that unmake plastics back into oil, so they can then be used to make plastic again.
The way plastic is currently recycled is more of a downward spiral than an infinite loop. Plastics are usually recycled mechanically: they are sorted, cleaned, shredded, melted and remoulded. Each time plastic is recycled this way, its quality is degraded. When the plastic is melted, the polymer chains are partially broken down, decreasing its tensile strength and viscosity, making it harder to process. The new, lower grade plastic often becomes unsuitable for use in food packaging and most plastic can be recycled a very limited number of times before it is so degraded it becomes unusable.
The emerging industry of chemical recycling aims to avoid this problem by breaking plastic down into its chemical building blocks, which can then be used for fuels or to reincarnate new plastics.
   In the UK, Mura Technology has begun construction of the world's first commercial-scale plant able to recycle all kinds of plastic
The most versatile version of chemical recycling is "feedstock recycling". Also known as thermal conversion, feedstock recycling is any process that breaks polymers down into simpler molecules using heat.
The process is fairly simple – take a plastic drinks bottle. You put it out with your recycling for collection. It is taken, along with all the other waste, to a sorting facility. There, the rubbish is sorted, either mechanically or by hand, into different kinds of materials and different kinds of plastics.
Your bottle is washed, shredded and packed into a bale ready for transportation to the recycling centre – so far, the same as the conventional process. Then comes the chemical recycling: the plastic that formerly made up your bottle could be taken to a pyrolysis centre where it is melted down. Next it is fed into the pyrolysis reactor where it is heated to extreme temperatures. This process turns the plastic into a gas which is then cooled to condense into an oil-like liquid, and finally distilled into fractions that can be put to different purposes.
Chemical recycling techniques are being trialled across the world. UK-based Recycling Technologies has developed a pyrolysis machine that turns hard-to-recycle plastic such as films, bags and laminated plastics into Plaxx. This liquid hydrocarbon feedstock can be used to make new virgin quality plastic. The first commercial-scale unit was installed in Perth in Scotland in 2020.
The firm Plastic Energy has two commercial-scale pyrolysis plants in Spain and plans to expand into France, the Netherlands and the UK. These plants transform hard-to-recycle plastic waste, such as confectionery wrappers, dry pet food pouches and breakfast cereal bags into substances called "tacoil". This feedstock can be used to make food-grade plastics.
In the US, the chemical company Ineos has become the first to use a technique called depolymerisation on a commercial scale to produce recycled polyethylene, which goes into carrier bags and shrink film. Ineos also has plans to build several new pyrolysis recycling plants.
In the UK, Mura Technology has begun construction of the world's first commercial-scale plant able to recycle all kinds of plastic. The plant can handle mixed plastic, coloured plastic, plastic of all composites, all stages of decay, even plastic contaminated with food or other kinds of waste.
Mura's "hydrothermal" technique is a type of feedstock recycling using water inside the reactor chamber to spread heat evenly throughout. Heated to extreme temperatures but pressurised to prevent evaporation, water becomes "supercritical" – not a solid, liquid, nor gas. It is this use of supercritical water, avoiding the need to heat the chambers from the outside, that Mura says makes the technique inherently scalable.
Once this high-pressure system is depressurised and the waste exits the reactors, the majority of liquid flashes off as vapour. This vapour is cooled in a distillation column and the condensed liquids are separated on a boiling range to produce four hydrocarbon liquids and oils: naphtha, distillate gas oil, heavy gas oil and heavy wax residue, akin to bitumen. These products are then shipped to the petrochemical industry.
As with other feedstock techniques, there is no down-cycling as the polymer bonds can be formed anew, meaning the plastics can be infinitely recycled. With a conversion rate of more than 99%, nearly all the plastic turns into a useful product.
Yet in the past 30 years, chemical recycling has shown serious limits. It is energy-intensive, has faced technical challenges and proved difficult to scale up to industrial levels.
Full text source: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210510-how-to-recycle-any-plastic
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Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide

The Genius of Venture Capital (Part 4): Networking by conferencing

The genius, it bears repeating, of venture capital, is connecting people with good ideas and no money, to people with money and no ideas.

The key to making these connections is your network.

The key to growing your network, if you are not already connected, is to identify and connect with people you want to add to your network.

A previous post (http://desulf.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-genius-of-venture-capital-part-3.html) suggested LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com) as one route to that destination.

Today’s post suggests another … conferencing.

Remember … VCs select, on average, only one percent (1%) of the deals they consider (How Venture Capitalists Make Decisions: An inside look at an opaque process (https://hbr.org/2021/03/how-venture-capitalists-make-decisions ))

Accordingly, whether you are an aspiring venture capitalist, an investor, or an entrepreneur, plan to meet and speak to at least 100 people in the VC business as you strive to build your network.

One way to start is to attend various conferences focusing on VC.

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TIP #1: Google® venture capital conferences 2021

One result ...

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Top 60 Venture Capital Conferences in 2021
Julia Ciaciek, Tara Johnson
Source: https://selected.sesamers.com/top-30-vc-events-in-2021/
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This list is one of the best I have seen. Browse the list to determine which events seem like a good fit for you. Since most of the events are already in the past, here is another tip …

TIP #2: Google® the name of each event that catches your eye on the Top 60 list to find the next date for that event.

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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide

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Turquoise Hydrogen

The newest edition of PTQ-Petroleum Technology Quarterly has arrived. PTQ Q4 2021 (https://www.digitalrefining.com/) includes a number of interesting and technically informative articles.

Among them is one co-authored by two Saudi Aramco affiliates. It describes the use of modular construction to improve the economics of refinery upgrades, including a specific Aramco case study to illustrate their points.

Saudi Aramco, of course, is a well-known enterprise. Less well-known is sbh4 Consulting. An article describing turquoise hydrogen production, a mostly green process for hydrogen production, is authored by sbh4 Consulting founder and principal Stephen B. Harrison.

Because sustainable refining is a topic of increasing importance, Harrison’s article is worth a close look.

TIP: Google® what is turquoise hydrogen to learn the difference between green and turquoise hydrogen production.

EXCERPTS from the two articles highlighted above appear below.

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A modular approach to technology enhancements
Emad Al Subaie And Jesse H. Williams Saudi Aramco
Akash Desai, Ian Elgey and Alok Tanawade KBR
[ EXCERPTS ]
Commissioned in 1980, Riyadh refinery is implementing a new heavy oil upgrader to enhance plant profitability. Heavy oil upgrading is a typical industry strategy for many owner operators that seek to increase refinery margins. The key is to first identify the appropriate upgrader technology that creates the most value for the refinery.
Modular design facilities have been shown to create opportunities to accelerate the delivery of a project. The modularisation concept moves an elevated percentage of the construction work to an off-site location, under a more controlled environment compared to conventional stick-built on-site construction. Constructing the modules tivity and improves the quality that leads to lower costs.
Riyadh’s modules should be fully assembled with all essential process equipment, electrical, instrumentation, and fire protection systems, and tested before leaving the fabrication yard. Fully assembled modules allow for easy installation, tie-in (connectivity), and faster commissioning, as the essential engineering and pre-commissioning activities have been completed prior to final delivery to the site.
Annually, Saudi Aramco evaluates a selected group of potential future projects for module design. Riyadh refinery’s new heavy oil upgrader, the supercritical solvent deasphalting plant (SDA), was identified as a potential candidate for further evaluation and development.
Saudi Aramco and KBR have developed this article to provide an overview of potential opportunities for value creation when implementing technology improvements through modularisation for a centrally located Riyadh refinery.

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Turquoise hydrogen production by methane pyrolysis
Technologies for methane pyrolysis are at different levels of maturity up to early-stage commercial operations
Stephen B. Harrison sbh4 Consulting
[ EXCERPT ]
Hydrogen is in general regarded as a clean energy vector. But whether or not hydrogen has a positive impact on mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions depends heavily on its mode of generation.
Within this article, hydrogen production by means of methane pyrolysis is examined. Different technical approaches to methane pyrolysis are presented, and their benefits and drawbacks are highlighted
A major question in the whole value chain of hydrogen production through methane pyrolysis is the downstream utilisation of the produced solid carbon. If natural gas, shale gas or fracking gas is used in methane pyrolysis, fossil CO2 emissions are unavoidable in downstream processes, which eventually result in downstream emissions similar to state-of-the-art, coke based processes. To overcome this intrinsic obstacle, the use of upgraded biogas and synthetic e-methane are presented. In both ways, the carbon is derived from the atmosphere, either via a biological pathway in terms of biogas, or via direct air capture (DAC) of CO2. If atmospheric CO2 is used as the feedstock in renewable methane production, then methane pyrolysis could provide a viable pathway to the supply of sustainable solid carbon or graphite for various industrial applications.
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TIP: Google Stephen B. Harrison sbh4
Here is what appears on the sbh4 Web site …
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Hi, I am Stephen B. Harrison, Managing Director at sbh4.
My professional background extends over 30 years. Of those years, 16 were in the UK with The BOC Group plc, a FTSE 100 company.  More recently, I worked for 10 years in Munich with Linde AG, a DAX30 organisation.  As a result of this international experience, I am bilingual in English and German and I have dual nationality.
For more than half of my career, I have championed and led a niche Specialty Gases business within these two Industrial Gases giants. So, I have experienced the big corporate environment and the more intimate small firm culture that thrived in the specialties division.
Since 2017, I have been running my own consulting practice at sbh4 and I am also the principal, Germany at Nexant Energy & Chemicals Advisory – responsible for consulting activities in the DACH region.
I maintain close contact with the industrial gases sector through my work with gasworld & H2 View. I write for both of these leading trade publications and I am also a member of the gasworld editorial advisory board.
In 2019 my wife, Gundula Harrison, also joined sbh4 to extend our marketing services capacity. She has German, Chinese and English language skills and a wealth of experience at DAX 30 automotive and industrial companies and several Mittelstand organisations. Your communications and marketing projects will shine with her input.
sbh4 associates
Since the beginning of 2021, Nadra Mahmoudi has joined the sbh4 consulting team as an associate. Nadra has a rich pedigree in power management and renewables in Algeria. North Africa has significant potential for renewable wind and solar power generation and may become a renewable hydrogen export hub to Europe. We are delighted to have Nadra as a key member of the sbh4 team.
In June of 2021, Hamid Yousefi joined the sbh4 consulting team as an Associate Consultant. Hamid is a highly experienced reservoir engineer and is using his geological expertise to support CCUS and underground hydrogen gas storage and production projects. Beyond that, his technical expertise and Oil and Gas sector background is being applied to broader clean energy and decarbonisation themes. It is an honour to have Hamid on board at sbh4.
In the summer of 2021, Allegra Cresswell-Turner will be supporting the sbh4 consulting team as an intern. Allegra is committed to pursuing a career in renewables. She is an international languages and communications specialist and will support multiple projects with technical writing, translation, report preparation and PR activities. We are delighted to welcome Allegra to the sbh4 team.
We have an extensive network of experienced & expert energy & chemicals sector consultants who stand ready to support a broad range of market intelligence, technology evaluation, M&A transaction support, due diligence and investment analysis projects worldwide.
Our insight, experience, energy and expertise are at your service.
Tel +49 (0)8171 24 64 954
Email: info@sbh4.de
https://www.sbh4.de/team.html
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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide

PTQ Q1 2022 and Catalysis 2022 Call For Articles

PTQ-Petroleum Technology Quarterly (www.digitalrefining.com) wants you to consider contributing to the Q1 2022 issue, and the Catalysis 2022 issue.
Subjects range from crude blending to heavy oil processing to sustainable technologies. Sustainable technologies, of course, is becoming an increasingly urgent topic in the oil & gas industry.

Here is the text of the email I rec’d with more details …

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EMAIL FROM PTQ re: CALL FOR PAPERS
We have listed below the subjects we are looking to cover in the upcoming Q1 2022 issue of PTQ, as well as the Catalysis 2022 issue, both of which will be distributed to 29,411 downstream industry personnel within every refinery, gas and petrochemical processing plant, operating, engineering and licensing company worldwide.
 
As usual, we are seeking contributions that describe practical applications of established technology in the form of case studies, along with details of new developments in the world of refining, gas and petrochemical processing technology. In the first instance, please send your editorial suggestions to Chris Cunningham, editor@petroleumtechnology.com

The Q1 (Jan, Feb, Mar) issue of PTQ will feature articles on:
• Crude Blending
• Sustainable Technologies
• Refinery/Petrochemicals Integration
• Corrosion/Fouling Control
• Steam Cracking
• Operational Excellence
• Heavy Oil Processing
• Catalyst Developments
• Plant Design & Engineering
• Hydroprocessing
 
AUTOMATION & CONTROL
• Analytical Instruments
• Wireless Technology
• Predictive Control Technology
• IIoT & Digital Solutions
• Data Management & Security
• Modelling & Simulation

SAFETY & ENVIRONMENTAL
• Emissions Control
• Flare Systems
• Energy Efficiency
• Process Safety
• Water/Wastewater Management
• SOx/NOx Control

The Catalysis issue will feature articles on:
• FCC Catalyst Developments
• Additives for FCC Processing
• Catalysts for Bottoms Cracking
• Regenerating and Recycling Catalysts
• Catalysts for Reforming Processes
• Hydroprocessing Catalyst Developments
• Tail Gas Treating Catalysts
• Catalysts for Desulphurisation
• Additives for FCC Processing
• Catalysts for Increased Olefins Output
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Google® Better!
Jean Steinhardt served as Librarian, Aramco Services, Engineering Division, for 13 years. He now heads Jean Steinhardt Consulting LLC, producing the same high quality research that he performed for Aramco.

Follow Jean’s blog at: http://desulf.blogspot.com/  for continuing tips on effective online research
Email Jean at research@jeansteinhardtconsulting.com  with questions on research, training, or anything else
Visit Jean’s Web site at http://www.jeansteinhardtconsulting.com/  to see examples of the services we can provide