PyroReactor

Our PyroReactor is a type of furnace that can transform plastics like PET or PE into an oil that can then be used as fuel.

We are building a machine that decomposes plastic into fuel using heat.

So how does it work? First you place your plastic waste in the stainless steel container and seal it, you turn on the electrical resistors and when it reaches around 500°C the plastic will transform into a gas. This gas turns into liquid in the condenser. The condenser is a copper tubing covered in cold water where the plastic gas circles around until it is transformed into a liquid. This liquid form exits into a plastic container where it is stored.

We use two tubular electrical resistors to generate the temperature needed and a refractory ceramic fiber to insulate the heat.

According to El Economista Jalisco is the national leader in the industrial production of plastic, by generating more than 50% of the plastics demanded by Mexico which is equivalent to approximately 3.5 million metric tons per year (Romo, 2015). Our state disposes of around 4.3 million tons of plastic per year and of this number only 1.2 million tons of waste are recycled. All the waste that is not recycled ends up in a landfill, in the streets, or in our body.

Microplastics are pieces smaller than 5 millimeters and are generated by plastic degradation by constant exposure to UV light. They are eaten by marine life and travel up the food chain to our plates, but they are not only in our food. “Microplastics have been found in honey, sea sault, beer, tap water and in the household dust around us” (Plastic Pollution: How Humans are Turning the World into Plastic | Kurzgesagt, 2018), altough research is currently being conducted to know their effects in the human body.

‌Mishandling of waste not only intoxicates the flora, fauna and food of our community, but increases the risk of flooding, since plastic accumulates in the sewer gates blocking water drainage and ocasionating very severe car accidents and heavily damaging people's homes, specially the ones from poor communities. At least 400 houses were affected by the flooding season.

Our solution is for those who live in the city, for the animal population and for those who eat the animals. Being citizens we have experienced firsthand the fear of seeing the route to get to your house filled with water up to the waist and seeing families devastated by all they lost when the water filled their houses.

It is sad to walk in the forest and see a squirrel trying to take a bite out of plastic or have its head stuck in a food container, even worse is to see that in Puerto Vallarta turtles and birds die of malnutrition with their bellies full of plastic.

And we better hope microplastics don't turn out to be toxic, because they are everywhere.

We are not cleaning the microplastics that are already in our bodies, nor are we cleaning the sewers, but by actively reducing the amount of plastic in our community, we aim to stop them before they ever have a chance to become food or to increase the probability and severity of floodings.

The pandemic and working on the prototype has frustrated the opportunity of the team to go volunteer in the mayto turtle camp, but we have been in contact with attendees and researching the effects of plastic in marine life to have a better understanding of the problem and therefore the solution.

Our potential users and the public we seek to help are not the same population. Although citizens and animals effectively benefit from the absence of plastic waste, we have two users. The machine operators and those who will buy the fuel.

Throughout the process we have been in contact with mechanical and chemical engineers who gave us their advice for the design of the machine, but we still need to contact people who have worked in industrial plants to have a better understanding of the machine operators. For those who are going to buy the fuel, we conducted a survey. We asked them questions about current gasoline suppliers and their opinion on an alternative based on recycled plastic. Although opinions were mixed, the general response was positive.

"If no action is taken, the plastic will increasingly impact our ecosystems, health, and economies." (“The Ocean Cleanup,” 2021)

Our solution focuses on plastic pollution rather than climate change. As we mentioned before, plastic is a problem that puts the lives of animals and citizens at risk. It does so by incorporating into the food chain and by increasing the frequency and intensity of flooding by plugging the drainage systems in our state.

We started researching and asking engineers for advice in April. While they advised us, we looked for designs that already existed and how we could improve upon them. Our idea was to add electrical resistance for heating and a system to insulate the heat. Between August and October we quoted several providers for each material to ensure we found the right price for our budget and began making orders. During November and December the parts and materials began arriving so we started construction.

We finished building the PyroReactor this December and we plan on beginning the testing and iterating phase when the team members are back from their Christmas vacations.

Our solution has 3 main parts. The furnace, the condensator, and the storage unit.

The furnace is where the plastic reaches its boiling point and turns into a gas. It is  made out of stainless steel and was T.I.G welded. It uses 2 tubular electrical resistors to reach temperatures of around 500°C and refractory ceramic fibers to minimize the loss of heat and the energy needed to operate.

The condensator is where the gas cools down and turns into a liquid. It is a flexible copper pipe that goes around a bucket of water with ice. We chose copper because we needed an accessible material that was good at transmitting heat, so the gas has no problem reaching its condensation temperature.

The storage unit is the simplest part, it's just a container where the resulting oil is sent to for storage.

The number of people affected by microplastics in Guadalajara is not known, but we plan to help at least the 400 people who were affected by the flooding season.

We also plan to help more people by incorporating into our city's electrical grid, but first we need to calculate the amount of energy that our reactor can produce in a year and divide it by the energy consumed annually by an average house. We will obtain this data once the testing phase begins.

Our impact plan is to create an alternative source of energy that reduces the amount of plastic from the environment.

Next year we are going to start testing the reactor, publish our results and begin looking for people with experience in Guadalajara's industrial plants and power plants. Once we contact them we can research ways we could produce energy for the city with a bigger version of our reactor.

Right now we measure our progress in terms of how much of the prototype has been done, but in the future we will use energy generated and kilos of plastic transformed.

If our project is as successful as we plan it to be, we could measure progress in how high the water level was in each municipality compared to last year and how many sewers the government had to unclog.

We calculated how thick the reactor needed to be but the calculation could be wrong and the reactor might burst, generating an extra cost, a safety hazard and time consumption. To prevent this we are planning an improved version of the reactor, but we need further financial aid for this.

We are also falling short on legal counsel. There is a lot we don't know we don't know about the norms for pressure vessels and selling fuel. 

One of our goals is to make it as easy to use as possible. We will teach some of our classmates how it's used and take notes for possible changes. Depending on how hard it was to use we might need time to make changes.

We could have a hard time finding the experts and they might not be willing to help us with our research, they could also be busy and give us a hard time accomodating to their schedule.

Each team member is studying to become a technologist. Jacob is studying drug chemistry and Javier and Emmanuel are studying Design and Industrial Mechanics, but most importantly, we all have experienced and seen the consequences of plastic pollution in one way or another.

We all have been left wondering “how the hell am I gonna get back home when the water is up to my neck outside?” or have had to help a family member whose house was affected by the floods.

We are not currently partnering with any organization.