Question for the Thermal Depolymerization experts here...

[slor]

this is the "turkey offal to oil" technology. Can it be used to clean and separate the toxic stew that is New Orleans?

[MercutioATC]

1. Thermal Depolymerization...and yes.

It breaks down anything except nuclear waste.

(I don't know how efficient the process would be with billions of gallons of water, however)

[punpirate]

3. For industrial solvents and other toxic material...

... there's a better process--supercritical water oxidation. That process is exothermic, so once everything is up to temperature, it stays there--the only cost is the electricity for high-pressure injection of waste into the reactor.

However, with the large amount of water, the only reasonably efficient way to recover the toxic wastes would be to pump the wastewater into lined holding ponds, allow the water to evaporate off and then process the toxic materials.

There's still going to be lots of drainage into the subsoil and the groundwater, and that's where the long-term problems will be created, along with the high long-term costs. It's expensive to mitigate even small spills--imagine what it will be like to do several hundred square miles....

[Warren DeMontague]

2. I remember a bit of a buzz around thermal depolymerization a couple years

ago..

haven't heard much since, although the concept sounded great- my personal hunch is the catch may be the amt. of energy required to drive the process vs. what is obtained at the end.

But I'm not sure at what scale it's been done, either- and it sounds to me like they're going to be dealing with a mondo load of crap down there... that said, I do remember the guy saying pretty much the only thing it couldn't handle was radioactive waste.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

4. Requires energy. Ok if you have cheap electricity.

[NNadir]

5. The Turkey bit was a commercial failure.

http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2005/Changing-World-Technologies12apr05.htm