swaminathan ramesh
EcoFuel Technologies, Inc
Dr. Swaminathan Ramesh is the founder / CEO of EcoFuel technologies, Inc (EFT, from 2012) and Advanced Technologies of Michigan, inc (from 1992). EFT was formed to further develop and market the ‘Plastics to Fuel’ technology. Dr. Ramesh has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, India and performed 4.5 years of post-doctoral research at the University of Illinois. Dr. Ramesh joined BASF Corporation in 1983 as a Research Scientist and retired after 23 years. He has about 20 papers and over 40 US patents.Three of tem are related to plastic to fuel
Humans have produced over 15 trillion pounds of plastics, starting from 1950. While the plastics have very desirable properties like light weight, mold-able into many, many shapes and forms, strong, perfect for sanitary and... [ view full abstract ]
Humans have produced over 15 trillion pounds of plastics, starting from 1950. While the plastics have very desirable properties like light weight, mold-able into many, many shapes and forms, strong, perfect for sanitary and transportation packaging, their very durability means all the plastic produced are still present, clogging up our oceans, beaches and land. If unchecked, it is predicted that there will be more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Since they can absorb and concentrate toxins around them, some by a million fold, pose substantial health risk for fish, animals and humans. Many countries are talking about banning plastics outright.
The problem is not plastics, but the single use and discard culture. Most forms of the plastics have similar energy density as diesel or gasoline. If this energy can be captured in an economical and business positive way, theoretically we can produce a minimum of 1 trillion gallons of diesel.
Pyrolysis under inert atmosphere is technologically a successful process to de-polymerize many types of plastic into 'plastic oil' - equivalent to crude oil. However, big plans to deal with the available plastic always ended up as business failures. The cost associated with transporting huge volumes of plastic and the plastic oil to the refineries made it impossible to turn a profit if the crude is less than $60 a barrel.
EcoFuel Technologies (EFT) has taken a different approach. Its catalyzed pyrolysis can be run as a continuous process with its reactor having a small footprint. A Plastic to Fuel (PTF) unit capable of processing 10000 pounds a day can be mounted on an eighteen wheel truck. It can go where the plastic are. Another important difference is it can directly produce diesel in very high yield from a mixture of polyethylenes, polypropylene and 20% polystyrene, making the product it at least 200% more valuable than plastic oil.
We envision placing a number of such portable PTF units where it is justified to clean up the plastic waste, produce high quality fuel and help the local economy. We can operate on land or water.
Thermal energy and building performance , Energy recycling systems
