Conversion of plastic to petroleum...

N.W. Ananda Vithanage a 39-year-old resident of Kabulumulla, Yatiyantota has discovered a technology capable of producing fuel out of a mixture of plastic, polythene, used tyres and tubes and other waste material. A past pupil of Rajasinghe MMV, Ruwanwella, Vithanage was employed as a police officer for ten years.

On retirement Vithanage worked as a building contractor in the private sector. While engaged in the construction sector he initially tried his hand at producing plastic sheets out of plastic waste. Having discovered a method of changing the solid plastic waste into a liquid form, Vithanage next put his mind to discover a way of producing a litre of petroleum using a kilo each of plastic and polythene.

His modus operandi has been to chop plastic and other waste material into bits and dissolve them in a chemical he concocted.
The mixture is then poured into another machine he has invented, steamed and cooled. The product produced on cooling is said to produce a liquid with an 86% petroleum content and the balance diesel.

With the residue from the process, Vithanage claims he was still able to produce plastic sheets! Speaking of his discovery, Mr. Vithanage said that the process has now come under scrutiny of Moratuwa University don Prof. Jagath Premachandra. Vithanage says, Prof. Premachandra has said the discovery is of a high quality. He added that the Petroluem Corporation had placed an order for a daily quota of 15,000 litres of petrol after carrying out research into the new variety of fuel.

He opines that the new fuel has a capacity of improving the per litre capacity of vehicles to around 7 kms over their present per litre capacity. Vithanage said he had spent over four lakhs of rupees to produce the machine which was capable of producing 20 litres of fuel for every 20 kilos of polythene and plastic waste.“If I am provided with the necessary facilities he said, I have the ability of saving of rupees two billion rupees per year”.