[lvxferre]

>I'm a PhD chemist.

This sort of "chrust me, I have kwalifikashuns" is rather fitting the overall poor quality of your comment.

There are a thousand things wrong with this application. Viability of the process is NOT one of them, as already attested in the literature. Refer for example to

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016523701...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09213...

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31917892/

The reaction boils down to R'-CH₂-CH₂-R" → R'-CH=CH₂ + H-R". It's practically the reversal of the polymerisation that created the plastic on first place. It's specially obvious by the third paper that I've listed as example, since they're generating butadiene and olefins from polyethylene.

It is by no means on the same level as "selling you a way to change Iron into Gold".

>Plastics have very LONG carbon chains, usually with many double bonds, and very little hydrogen

General purpose polymers like polyethylene and polypropylene do not usually have double bonds. Specially not in the main chain (that you need to cleave to get smaller molecules). You'll only get double bonds in the main chain if your monomers had a triple bond in its place, as one of the bonds is broken in the polymerisation. Most monomers however start with a double bond and the resulting polymers have single bonds. Here, let me show it to you:

(...) + R'=R" + R'=R" + (...) → (...) + [·R'-R"·] + [·R'-R"·] + (...) → (...)-R'-R"-R'-R"-(...)

This is common knowledge among chemists.

>That is why, when you heat plastic it decomposes into char -- as in charcoal.

Yeah, because the hydrogens magically disappear. The presence of nearby oxidants (specially one that you, QuackOfAllTrades, should stop consuming, for a better humankind) is totally unrelated.

_____________________

For actual criticism of the application:

You'll get nasty junk oil as output. That oil will have ONE purpose: to be burned down. If you're burning down the oil might as well burn the plastic directly.

This could be solved by fractional distillation... yeah good luck doing it at home.

What happens if some clueless individual tries to recycle PAN? Or even PVC, given how nasty organochlorines are. So there is both health and environmental concerns.

What's the catalyst being used? Plenty catalysts are environmentally nasty.

1KWh/kg is a lot of energy, and it will have an environmental footprint.

It is not trying to sell you a magical device that transforms iron into gold. Instead it is trying to sell you a device that converts good iron into crappy iron, and marketing the crappy iron as if it was more useful than it is.