Have you heard about the new special type of rocket fuel that is made from plastic waste? One company uses particular kinds of plastic to remake them in rocket fuel. The new kind of fuel has already been tested and the result is pretty good

You can make anything into anything. That doesn't mean it makes sense. Until none of your electricity comes from fossil fuel, none of these schemes are going to pay out.

I don't think it will ever pay off. A Falcon 9 launch uses as much fuel as a fully tanked Boeing 777. The kind of kerosene used for fireworks and rocketry is not that expensive, and not such a scarce resource. If we wanted to save fossil fuels, there are more sensible avenues.

I think the intention behind such research is not making space launches more environmentally friendly. It's about developing new processes that could be quite sensible in other areas, for example turning plastic waste into chemicals that are actually difficult to produce from crude oil.

bearnard123 wrote:

Have you heard about the new special type of rocket fuel that is made from plastic waste?

No, haven't heard that. Would be useful if you provide type(s) of rocket fuel involved. There are a few of them, for instance:

Liquid hydrogen
Kerosene
Hydrazine
Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine
Dinitrogen tetroxide
Monomethyl hydrazine
Hydrogen peroxide
Hydroxylterminated polybutadiene
Fluorine
Aerozine 50
Red fuming nitric acid
Ethanol
Pentaborane
Chlorine pentafluoride
...and maybe a dozen more exotic fuels not used so much. Plus there are solid fuels which are mixtures of a lot of exotic chemicals.

It would be relevant to know what type of fuel can be made from plastic waste.

bearnard123 wrote:

Have you heard about the new special type of rocket fuel that is made from plastic waste? One company uses particular kinds of plastic to remake them in rocket fuel. The new kind of fuel has already been tested and the result is pretty good

Overly simplified all plastics are pretty much still just oil. If you want to use plastic waste thermally, better burn it in a place with exhaust treatment instead of rockets.

best regards
Thomas

The new type of fuel ( remade from plastic has already been tested. The result of the test was pretty successfull, and has shown that the new type of rocket fuel is 1% - 3% better than kerosene by its energy characteristics. Frankly to say, I am not sure if this kind of fuel can be used for long space journeys.

Also, I wanna add that the type of the rocket fuel I`ve mentioned can be remade only from particular types of plastic.The following types of plastic can be converted into ecosene fuel: Polypropylene (PP).
Polyester (PE).
Polystyrene (PS) and their mixtures and analogs

bearnard123 wrote:

The new type of fuel ( remade from plastic has already been tested. The result of the test was pretty successfull, and has shown that the new type of rocket fuel is 1% - 3% better than kerosene by its energy characteristics. Frankly to say, I am not sure if this kind of fuel can be used for long space journeys.

reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntin

best regards
Thomas

Also, I wanna add that there is an alternative kind of rocket that has a term ``hybrid rocket`` The term ``hybrid`` was given to it because it combines solid Hydroxyl Terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB) fuel and 90% Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) liquid oxidiser.

flyingturtle wrote:

I don't think it will ever pay off. A Falcon 9 launch uses as much fuel as a fully tanked Boeing 777. The kind of kerosene used for fireworks and rocketry is not that expensive, and not such a scarce resource. If we wanted to save fossil fuels, there are more sensible avenues.

It would be easier to transport into space and refine into rocket fuel at a later point. Like at a remote base on the moon or mars.

Wow, rocket fuel made from plastic waste is something really new for me. I don't understand why people negatively perceive everything. Our aerospace industry develops, and it's amazing. It's too early for me to make any conclusions about the effectiveness of this fuel, I need to spend time finding more information about it, but I think it's a rather good replacement for traditional solid fuel.

bearnard123 wrote:

Also, I wanna add that there is an alternative kind of rocket that has a term ``hybrid rocket`` The term ``hybrid`` was given to it because it combines solid Hydroxyl Terminated Polybutadiene (HTPB) fuel and 90% Hydrogen Peroxide (H202) liquid oxidiser.

"hybrid" rocket is any design that combines a solid and a fluid as propellant.
not even a given that the oxidizer is the fluid part. "reverse hybrid".

Sure, we ‘could.’ But with the solar minimum and global cooling approaching, it would be pretty wasteful/expensive/silly to do so. A much better use of resources would be transitioning further to Hydrogen/methane for fuel a la starship. Water vapor isn’t a bad emission, and then using that to go mine asteroids. The D4 heavy for instance burns methane and oxygen, but also emits/goes thru a bunch of carbon as it ascends from the nozzle.

Kerosene will wind up fading as a propellant as it is not as clean as the other options.

MadAstronaut wrote:

Wow, rocket fuel made from plastic waste is something really new for me. I don't understand why people negatively perceive everything. Our aerospace industry develops, and it's amazing. It's too early for me to make any conclusions about the effectiveness of this fuel, I need to spend time finding more information about it, but I think it's a rather good replacement for traditional solid fuel.

I consider this kind of fuel a good invention, however as I have already said it is only useful for some small launches and it is not good for some long space journeys. Also, according to the words of scientists who worked on ecosence fuel, this fuel is eco friendly, so this fact makes it even better

tommy1808 wrote:

bearnard123 wrote:

The new type of fuel ( remade from plastic has already been tested. The result of the test was pretty successfull, and has shown that the new type of rocket fuel is 1% - 3% better than kerosene by its energy characteristics. Frankly to say, I am not sure if this kind of fuel can be used for long space journeys.

reminds me of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntin

it has more "oompf", for sure.
But I do wonder how much energy is spent on creating that stuff?

bearnard123 wrote:

I consider this kind of fuel a good invention, however as I have already said it is only useful for some small launches and it is not good for some long space journeys. Also, according to the words of scientists who worked on ecosence fuel, this fuel is eco friendly, so this fact makes it even better

The impossibility of using this fuel for long launches is a big drawback. Don't you know if scientists tried to modify this fuel to make it suitable for long space flights?

MadAstronaut wrote:

bearnard123 wrote:

I consider this kind of fuel a good invention, however as I have already said it is only useful for some small launches and it is not good for some long space journeys. Also, according to the words of scientists who worked on ecosence fuel, this fuel is eco friendly, so this fact makes it even better

The impossibility of using this fuel for long launches is a big drawback. Don't you know if scientists tried to modify this fuel to make it suitable for long space flights?

I don`t know anything about that. As far as I know, scientists just finished testing this fuel for some small launches. Lets see what the scientists will figure out in some time.

Practicality is important, all aviation requires the highest reliability from its engines. Why fool around with anything other than virgin fuels to ensure that reliability. There are plenty of processes - like cement kilns, marine freighters, large boilers, even on land stationary gas turbines where variability in the fuel does not affect safety. Use the recycled or less pure fuels there where is does not impact safety.

In aviation all the aluminum is virgin, let the recycled aluminum go into cans.

JayinKitsap wrote:

Practicality is important, all aviation requires the highest reliability from its engines. Why fool around with anything other than virgin fuels to ensure that reliability. There are plenty of processes - like cement kilns, marine freighters, large boilers, even on land stationary gas turbines where variability in the fuel does not affect safety. Use the recycled or less pure fuels there where is does not impact safety.

In aviation all the aluminum is virgin, let the recycled aluminum go into cans.

The type of the fuel I`ve mentioned in this thread has already been tested and the results of the test were quite good. Also, the Skyrora XL rocket uses fuel made from waste plastic.

bearnard123 wrote:

JayinKitsap wrote:

Practicality is important, all aviation requires the highest reliability from its engines. Why fool around with anything other than virgin fuels to ensure that reliability. There are plenty of processes - like cement kilns, marine freighters, large boilers, even on land stationary gas turbines where variability in the fuel does not affect safety. Use the recycled or less pure fuels there where is does not impact safety.

In aviation all the aluminum is virgin, let the recycled aluminum go into cans.

The type of the fuel I`ve mentioned in this thread has already been tested and the results of the test were quite good. Also, the Skyrora XL rocket uses fuel made from waste plastic.

As I know, Skyrora XL is the only spacecraft of this company that uses this eco-fuel. I hope that Skylark L, SkyHy, Skylark Nano will also be reconstructed to use Ecosene for flights.

MadAstronaut wrote:

bearnard123 wrote:

JayinKitsap wrote:

Practicality is important, all aviation requires the highest reliability from its engines. Why fool around with anything other than virgin fuels to ensure that reliability. There are plenty of processes - like cement kilns, marine freighters, large boilers, even on land stationary gas turbines where variability in the fuel does not affect safety. Use the recycled or less pure fuels there where is does not impact safety.

In aviation all the aluminum is virgin, let the recycled aluminum go into cans.

The type of the fuel I`ve mentioned in this thread has already been tested and the results of the test were quite good. Also, the Skyrora XL rocket uses fuel made from waste plastic.

As I know, Skyrora XL is the only spacecraft of this company that uses this eco-fuel. I hope that Skylark L, SkyHy, Skylark Nano will also be reconstructed to use Ecosene for flights.

I guess it depends on how rockets that use this kind of petrol will perform. Probably some new rockets will be made that use this new type of fuel remade from plastic

bearnard123 wrote:

MadAstronaut wrote:

bearnard123 wrote:

The type of the fuel I`ve mentioned in this thread has already been tested and the results of the test were quite good. Also, the Skyrora XL rocket uses fuel made from waste plastic.

As I know, Skyrora XL is the only spacecraft of this company that uses this eco-fuel. I hope that Skylark L, SkyHy, Skylark Nano will also be reconstructed to use Ecosene for flights.

I guess it depends on how rockets that use this kind of petrol will perform. Probably some new rockets will be made that use this new type of fuel remade from plastic

Recycling plastic into fuel is great, should be doing it far more than we are. However, it is far more practical to use virgin materials for the critical applications, using the recycled fuel stock elsewhere. For example, surgical stainless is made only from the 1st batch melted after new refractory is installed, because they do not want any trace molecules to contaminate the batch.

Back to fuels, the US Navy found that doing the recycled diesel in the program was costing something like $25 a gallon verses around $ 3 per gallon. So it can be done, but spending that extra on a massive amount of fuel verses something else must be recognized.

We can do almost anything, but that doesn't mean we have to.

i agree with Jay. At this point / maybe for quite a while it will be foolish to step over dollars to pick up dimes...