Energy Recovery from Pizza Boxes The Bots Adrian

Energy Recovery from Pizza Boxes ------The Bots: Adrian Chan Kevin Pramojaney Jonathan Song

Problem Statement: • • America is a pizza-loving country. In 2014, They ate 3 billion pizzas! That’s more pizzas than people on Earth when Kennedy was president. Pizza is a $30 billion per year industry. Many of these 3 billion pizzas come in pizza boxes! In fact, the average pizzeria uses over 60 pizza boxes every single day! The problem with our mass use of pizza boxes is that pizza boxes are not recyclable. Why? Pizzas create a lot of grease. Grease is a form of oil. When paper products, like pizza boxes, are recycled, they are mixed with water. The oil in the pizza boxes does not mix with the water, contaminating the whole batch of paper. This is a very big problem. It is estimated that recycling contamination causes $700 million of damage each year. Therefore, we must throw the boxes away. The boxes go into waste, which means that many boxes end up in landfills every year, threatening our environment even more! This is a problem to solve. But as shown in the next slide, there are not many good solutions. . .

Existing Solutions EXISTING SOLUTIONS THAT DO NOT WORK: • • • Composting the pizza boxes: Composting pizza boxes causes the cardboard to rot. Rotting cardboard creates methane which contributes to global warming. Also, rotting greasy cardboard smells bad and is simply harmful for your plants. Cut off the greasy sections: With those large, meaty pizzas, you may end up cutting over half of the box off and throwing it away. Plus, there is also a chance you may have missed a patch of grease. Wash the grease out using shampoo: It’s hard, if not impossible, to convince people to use their precious shampoo to wash pizza boxes, when it is simpler to throw it away. Some shampoos contain oil, which will cause the same problem. Use grease-eating bacteria developed by scientists: This bacteria is expensive and in testing. There is not much chance that the general public can access this fruit of hard labour just to clean a pizza box. Make your own pizza: While this is a good idea, some people to not have the time or talents required to make pizza. Even when you make your own pizza, there are still people who are throwing away their pizza boxes.

Awesome Bots’ Solution • • Imagine if pizza boxes could be recycled and turned into something useful! Our project is to recycle used pizza boxes to recover energy for generating electricity. • How? • • When burning greasy cardboard pizza boxes in the incinerator, a huge amount of heat energy is released. The heat energy is pumped into the boiler where water is boiled into pressurized steam. Steam turns the turbine which operates the generator. The generator creates electrical output. Leftover water/steam is cooled, fuel is feeded in, and the process begins again!

How Much Electricity can be Generated? Calorific value of cardboard 2. 024 k. Wh/ lb Average pizza box weight 0. 374 lb Energy recovered per pizza box 0. 759 k. Wh Appliance ● The average U. S. home used 11, 000 k. Wh, which is equivalent to 15, 000 Pizza Boxes. ● Pizza boxes recycled in NY state can power 5, 260 homes per year. Wattage Consumption Pizza Boxes (needed to operate for one hour) Conventional Oven 3, 000 W 4 Toaster Oven 1, 200 W 1. 5 Microwave Oven 1, 500 W 2 Home Desktop 100 W . 1 Laptop 150 W 1/5 Clothes Dryer 3, 400 W 4 -5 Dishwasher 1, 400 W 2 Standard CFL Bulb 60 W 1 pizza box will power for 5 days

How Much Money can be Made? BTU/lb for cardboard 6907 BTU Total k. Wh generated per year ~59. 7 million k. W Average pizza box weight 0. 374 lb k. Wh per day 6815 k. W Pizzas sold in US each year 3 billion MWh per day ~7 MW NY State Population 2. 63% of US Power Plant Cost Statistics $3, 246 per k. W Pizza boxes used in NY State 78. 9 million Total building cost $22. 7 million Weight of pizza boxes in NY ~29. 5 million lb 40 -year payment ~$1. 1 million per yr BTU/lb recovered from NY pizza boxes ~203. 8 trillion BTU Fixed Operation Statistics $37. 80 per k. W-yr Fixed Operation Cost $264, 600 BTU recovered from NY to k. Wh recovered from NY ~59. 7 million k. Wh Variable Operation Statistics $4. 47 per MWh NJ rate of profit per k. Wh $0. 265/k. Wh Variable Operation Cost $274, 100 Revenue generated from NY State per year ~$15. 8 million Total Operation Cost per year $538, 700 Total Expense per Year ~$1. 6 million NET INCOME PER YEAR: ~$14. 2 MILLION

Research/Bibliography • • • Aysen Ucuncu and P. Aarne Vesilind, “Energy Recovery from mixed-paper Waste”, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, (http: //infohouse. p 2 ric. org/ref/11/10059. pdf) “The Pizza Box Mystery”, Earth 911, (http: //www. earth 911. com/food/the-pizza-box-mystery/) Natha Dempsey, “Pizza Boxes: Too Valuable to Trash”, Foodservice Packaging Institute (http: //www. fpi. org/Pizza-Boxes-Too-Valuable-to-Trash) Samantha M. Botros, Patrick M. Botros, “Pizza Delivery Re-engineered”, American Association for the Advancement of Science, (http: //www. aaas. org/abstract/pizza-delivery-re-engineered) “Pizza Statistics”, Statistic Brain Research Institute, (http: //www. statisticbrain. com/pizza-statistics) “Updated Capital Cost Estimates for Utility Scale Electricity Generating Plants”, U. S. Energy Information Administration, (http: //www. eia. gov/forecasts/capitalcost/pdf/updated_capcost. pdf) “How do I sell Solar Power to a Utility Company”, Residential Solar Power, http: //www. residentialsolarpanels. org/sell-solar-power-utility-company “How Much Power do your Appliances Use? ”, Wholesale Solar, (http: //www. wholesalesolar. com/solar-information/how-to-save-energy/power-table) “Household Energy Consumption”, Point. Click. Switch, https: //www. pointclickswitch. com/householdenergy-consumption/ “Clinton turkey plant to create power”, Prestage Farms, (http: //www. prestagefarms. com/uncategorized/clinton-turkey-plant-to-create-power)