The Great Pacific Garbage Patch , has had a lot of publicity for the foundation created by Dutch student Boyan Slat at the age of 18. Boyan Slat has done a fabulous job bringing this enormous issue of trillions of tons of plastics being released into our oceans. This is already causing a huge problem to all the marine animals that mistakenly feed on this plastic. Mr. Boyan Slat enthusiasm for his project is commendable; he has done great work on technical data side, and managed to bring this immense problem to the world attention. Whilst we defer and honour Mr Slat‘s exceptional and extraordinary project to collect and retrieve this floating waste plastic has managed to get funding in excess 30 Mio Euros for his project, which by all standards is no mean ; He has produced a myriad of scientific analyses on this floating plastics, again very useful and time consuming work.  

Despite considerable online social media enthusiasm for the project, oceanographers and biologists are voicing less-publicized concerns. They question whether the design will work as described in his analysis and survive the natural forces of the open ocean on his floating gyre ocean plastic retrieval project, also how it will affect sea life, and whether this is actually is the best way to tackle the problem of ocean plastic. As it stands this projects is flawed because it does not solve the problem with a non-polluting solution.  

The plastic collected from the ocean has to be shipped back by thousands of polluting ships to land it on shore. This will start the whole process, where this plastic ends up in landfill, or start the same voyage back into the ocean. China use to take 60% of the European Union plastic to recycle and re-use. They now ban the importation with many other countries of this plastic. They will no longer take any of our plastic old or new. Most plastic ends up in landfills or in rivers and the ocean. The floating system is great in it-self but won't make it easy to collect the ocean plastic, the ships will have to go and find these drifting floating systems, finding these plastic patches takes time. As Science report stated on 11 May 2017, critics are skeptical of the project, which some see as well-intentioned but misguided. Only 11% of all plastic produce worldwide is recycled.

Mr. Boyan Slat’s NGO   intention was to create floating booms to gather the ocean plastic aided by sea currents and to send hundreds of ships to take this plastic to shore travelling thousands of sea kilometres each trip. These ships are big polluters, this is the problem. Ships generate a lot of unhealthy air pollution as well as carbon emissions, nitrous oxides (NOx) and sulfur oxides (SOx) from ship smokestacks that cause serious air quality damage, because ships burn heavy fuel oil, or “bunker fuel,” to fuel their generators at anchor in port cities. Off-loading and shipping this ocean plastic  from remote ocean sites thousands of kilometres from land makes little sense, with many states refusing to take this waste. Every year billions of tons plastic ends up in our oceans. If a ship say carries 1000 tons per shipment of retrieve plastic per trip, you would need thousands ship journeys  to bring all the plastic to shore, then  further transport by diesel trucks to hundreds of installations to eradicate this plastic, most of it will end up  in landfill or being burnt in polluting incinerators. It is estimated by the World Bank it will cost billion US$ to clean the earth oceans.

PROBLEM: It does not make much sense to reclaim this ocean plastic using polluting ships traveling thousands of kilometres per year, just to end up with the same problem once you bring the plastic back on land? Trash accumulates in five ocean garbage patches, the largest one being the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, located between Hawaii and California. Cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch would take many years and hundreds of millions of dollars to eradicate the ocean floating plastic. The Ocean Cleanup's research concept indicates that using a single 62-mile cleanup array, deployed for 10 years, it will passively remove 42 per cent of the great pacific garbage patch. If left to circulate, the plastic will impact our ecosystems, health and economies. Solving it requires a combination of closing the source, and cleaning up what has already accumulated in the ocean. That conservatively estimates this to be 70,320,000 kg. This implies a cleanup cost of € per kilo. Our solution will solve two environmental issues at the same time 1) clean our oceans of plastic and 2) using a zero emission propulsion ship and not using polluting bunker fuel, this will help to reduce air pollution and climate change. Instead of throwing money at the ocean plastic clean-up to retrieve this plastic waste, why not make it into saleable on-site hydrogen revenue yielding export product.

OUR SOLUTION: is to build or refit a specialized autonomous vessel with advanced technologies to rid the world’s oceans of plastic wherever it accumulates around the globe. The autonomous vessel will use the latest hydrogen fuel cell system to fuel its electric propulsion engine. The ocean plastic will be used as feedstock to produce onboard hydrogen and electricity from the PHEW2H2 (CHP)-Ultra Heat Temperature (UHT) gasification technology power plant.  PHEW2H2 will produce % pure hydrogen and electricity at sea from ocean plastic. The ship will be at sea almost all year round as it produces its own H2 fuel on a continuous basis and does not have to refuel portside. Hydrogen propulsion technology already exists for ocean-going ships; it is a low - pollution alternative fuel. The PHEW2H2 autonomous ship project will accommodate new autonomous technology to test and use telemetric, AI, as well as scientific, oceanographic technologies with conventional methods for retrieving the plastics in automated elevators between the trimaran ship wings to retrieve the feedstock plastic. (See annex 1)

TRESOIL BIOFUELS SRL will build and deploy an on-board decentralized on-site state-of-the-art gasification technology solution to eradicate plastics into % pure hydrogen and electricity at sea from ocean plastic. PHEW2H2 produces an alternative zero emission maritime fuel (H2) from ocean plastics that has the potential to replace heavy bunker and diesel fuel currently used in ocean and river vessels, at a more competitively priced fuel. This maritime solution can retrieve and eradicate ocean plastic waste in any of the five oceans into an export driven revenue stream. PHEW2H2 producing hydrogen (H2) from ocean plastic (plastics(RDF)) at 2-4 Euro per kilo will out compete polluting fossil fuels in both price and as an emission free green fuel. The market retail price for H2 today stands at 15 Euro/kg. The PHEW2H2 DMG© process can generate in excess of 1 tonne of road-fuel quality H2, and in excess of 28MW/h of own use exportable electricity per day. The autonomous PHEW2H2 trimaran (ship with 3 hulls) ship.

Algorithms and GPS will help specify the optimal dynamic positioning of the vessel and navigation to the location of the plastics.  This  ship can roams the ocean autonomously progressively eliminating each ocean plastic patch before moving to the next patch, the ship can also be located at the mouth of river littorals or ports to take and eradicate plastic into hydrogen or anywhere where the feed-stock is available and accumulates. Real-time telemetry will allow us to monitor the condition, performance and trajectory of each ship movement remotely as well as the weather. The ship will include systems and specialized elevator equipment to retrieve the plastics as it passes under each wing with minimal harm to ocean life, while handling plastic retrieval with safety. The trimaran ship with satellite positioning, and autonomous self-driving solutions will have H2 gas cargo handling and transfer system to liquid H2  carrier ships. This vessel could also be a pilot demonstration for the evaluation and testing of the different autonomous propulsion technologies, and oceanographic studies. Hydrogen fuel used for its own propulsion and electrical needs, hydrogen will be sold to hydrogen matured markets (Japan, S. Korea, Europe and china) delivered by specialize liquid H2 bulk carriers.

PHEW2H2 hydrogen underwater and on-board storage                                                          

The hydrogen is compressed at 350-700 bar and stored on board and in underwater balloon tanks, to then be off loaded onto LH2 type carriers similar to LNG carriers and taken to mature hydrogen markets.

 The PowerHouse Energy PHEW2H2 technology is the world’s first proven, small scale, modular hydrogen from waste (HfW), the process with very low emissions. Hydrogen can be diverted from the on-board production of PHEW2H2 syngas into road quality hydrogen fuel with existing, off-the-shelf technology, stored compressed or in a cryonic state and delivered to appropriate storage infrastructure in what is perhaps the single most economical and environmentally responsible manner possible. Hydrogen (H2) is the fuel of the future available NOW!
The PHEW2H2 ship’s base technology has been in use and proven on land for a few years now. PHEW2H2 is a disruptive decentralized on-site new technology solution to produce a hydrogen transport fuel from waste that has the potential to replace diesel, as a more competitively priced zero emission alternative fuel for all transport vehicles and ships. Producing hydrogen (H2) from municipal and commercial waste (plastics and worn tyres) Even though the PHEW2H2can process all carbonaceous material, the feedstock material needs to be mixed to a homogenous consistency. Producing Hydrogen H2 at 2-4 Euro per kilo will out compete polluting fossil fuels in both price and as an emission free green fuel. The market retail price for H2 today stands at 15 Euro/kg. PHEW2H2 revenue streams will come from the procurement and eradication of waste, landfill gate fee, environment tax for elimination of this waste, as well as sales from production of H2 fuel and from production of electricity 24 hours per day. Eradicating the ocean plastic on-board ship where it is retrieved is a solution to environment pollution by not sending waste thousands of kilometres to incineration and landfill makes financial and environmental sense.

How PHEW2H2 the Process works.

Feedstock Preparation

Feedstock preparation is vital to overall success of the entire system (large pieces of plastic).

Step 1 -Material with high calorific values such as tyres, plastics, bio-mass, municipal solid waste, hospital and hazardous waste, is shredded and then separated into recyclable materials and feedstock for PHEW2H2

Step 2 -feedstock is passed through vacuum controlled feed bin system to remove any air.

Step 3 -air-free feedstock moves through the rotating ultra-high temperature gasification chamber at atmospheric pressure in a non-combustive environment. The reactor, operating at above 1,200°C, breaks-down the feedstock within seconds, converting it into up to 70% hydrogen synthesis gas (syngas).

Step 4 -The syngas passes out of the reactor and any remaining solids (sand like basalt), which is benign.

Step 5 -The syngas is then “scrubbed” twice by a shower of caustic liquid. This effectively washes the gas of any impurities including harmful emissions such as NOx, SOx, toxic ash, tars, dioxin or furans.

Step 6 -The syngas can then be used to and separated with a little off-the-shelf technology into pure hydrogen, with the remaining carbon monoxide (a fuel) used to power the PHEW2H reactor continuously.

The autonomous hydrogen ship makes almost no noise, so it won’t upset marine life or interfere with the many sensors scientists use to listen to sounds in the ocean. Hydrogen Fuel cells ship propulsion eliminates fuel spills and is a zero-emissions technology, reducing NOx and SOx emissions that will gradually make cleaner ships, without contaminating air and waters in sensitive ecological areas.

Our mission  & plastic accumulation

 Estimated that to million tons of plastic are entering the ocean each year from rivers. to million metric tonnes of plastic is entering the ocean each year. Our aim is to develop an advanced technology to rid the world’s oceans of plastic and produce a road quality zero emission fuel to help get rid of air pollution.

 Innovation

 Low-Carbon Economy

 Raw Materials

 Eco-Innovation

 Sustainable Transport

 Clean Transport

 Maritime transport

 COSME

 Cross-border cooperation

 Smart Mobility