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Siemens Quickstarter corporate crowdfunding program looks for unconventional ideas and ways to get the worlds oceans out of plastic waste.
There are 150 million tons of plastic * in the worlds oceans * and there is no self-sustaining or profitable business model for the use of plastic waste in the oceans. Siemens has the technology to manufacture a device for converting plastic waste into energy or to process it directly.
Search for a sustainable business model
There is a huge amount of plastics moving around the oceans, which threatens the natural environment for the occurrence of marine plants and animals. Experts from Siemens Corporate Technology are currently working on solutions to help garbage and ocean waste.
Many start-ups and non-profit organizations have been working on concepts for how to get plastic waste from the seas and possibly recycle it for years. At present, prototypes of a wide range of collection facilities, such as a catamaran using a special network to collect garbage, are being tested.
Or , a floating device was developed in the Dutch crowdfunding project " The Ocean Cleanup ", which collects waste carried by ocean currents Many projects seem promising, but there is no business model yet profitable.
Thats why Felix Fischer, Ingo Bernsdorf and Florian Ansgar Jäger from Siemens Corporate Technology (CT) have begun to work on a project entitled " Cleaning the Ocean Is Our Business " within the companys Quickstarter crowdfunding program .
Find, collect and recycle
Researchers focused on three main themes: finding plastic waste, collecting and recycling it. "We will concentrate on the three main areas: finding places where the waste is contained in the sea, collecting it and then processing or recycling it," says Ingo Bernsdorf of Siemens Corporate Technology, adding that due to Siemens current technology offer, the company is particularly interested in recycling this type of waste.
"We are introducing a container solution that would burn non-recyclable plastic waste and where turbines and gasification plants would convert the resulting product into electricity," adds Bernsdorf. These containers could be used, for example, on the islands in Southeast Asia, where a large amount of plastics are being removed due to the lack of recycling facilities in the sea.
In addition, in these countries, electricity is often produced by diesel generators and is thus heavily dependent on fuel imports. "With the help of existing Siemens technologies, we could produce such a container easily," adds F. Ansgar Jäger.
"This solution would encourage decentralized energy production, which will continue to grow in the future." The Southeast Asian island community could use either waste that floods its coastline every day or owns the waste it produces on the islands.
Floating waste treatment facilities
The only way to really solve the problem with plastics is to collect huge piles of waste that move far in international waters. Researchers Fischer, Bernsdorf and Ansgar Jäger have therefore teamed up with Paul Cleverley of Siemens Digital Factory and experts from another major German company working, among other things, in the field of shipbuilding to jointly share the first ideas on a special ship design that waste at sea not only bundled, but also used it somehow.
For example, it could pre-sort some types of plastic waste and directly transform a small amount of non-recyclable waste into energy for its own CO 2 neutral operation.
The remaining waste would be pyrolysis (thermal treatment) during which this waste would be converted into oil that could be supplied to other ships as fuel. Although it is not yet certain whether this system will ever turn into reality, it is a very promising idea, says F. Fischer.
During discussions with other colleagues from the Siemens Power and Gas Division in Vienna, experts discussed other alternative ways of using plastic waste to produce energy or, for example, to desalinate seawater.
Will the plastics from the oceans also be used directly?
Streams and density of waste disposal are concentrated in different areas. Ships or other waste collection facilities will therefore need certain detection systems. For example, drones could be used to search for areas with particularly high levels of waste.
They should be equipped with high-performance camera technology and sensors and connected to the parent system via the data interface. According to Fischer, "Siemens MindSphere Cloud Solution already offers high-performance technology that could link all three complex areas - detection, collection and recovery of waste."
Three researchers from Siemens Corporate Technology are also looking into ways to re-use the plastic waste in the future. In addition to processing or incineration offshore for offshore power generation, plastic waste could be reused directly.
"We want to examine whether Siemens could not use this recycled plastic in its products," says Jäger. "A lot of our products require special plastic compounds that must be refractory or non-flammable. Siemens should decide in which areas it can gradually start using recycled plastic waste from seawater. "
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