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hinkleylast Wednesday at 12:47 AM1 replyview on HN

15KW to make a single sheet of plastic. That is practically the entire capacity of a residential power feed.

And “several sheets per day”. Ouch.

If I were seeing a plastic recycling facility on How It’s Made I would expect to see a continuous feed system, with elaborate heat scavenging systems to preheat the ingredients while cooling the product.

I’m not sure how you scale such a thing down to cottage industry scale. Preheating to around 60° could be reasonably done by amateurs but this stuff goes up to at least 350° to melt plastic.


Replies

mchannonlast Wednesday at 1:41 AM

Am thinking propane tanks.

Working with those temps probably not appropriate for an office environment, but on a porch or well-ventilated garage, should economically outperform 110V pretty well.

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