HOW IT WORKS | Tyre recycling, Sugar, Doormats, LPG conversion | Episode 26 | Free Documentary

the show that reveals how extraordinary items in our world are designed constructed and produced see the engineering that's technology and big ideas that make the world go round find out how it works [Music] coming up in today's show cakes and desserts just wouldn't be the same without it we'll find out how sugar beets is turned into sugar they spend their whole lives being walked on but the humble doormats is a great job for accepting your carpets and find out how and more miles Emily Shirley the car owners dream will learn more about the benefits of converting your car to run liquid natural gas but first rubber roasting tire smoking action is all part of the fun at a modern car rally but at this rate the tires will go home pretty quickly or whether it's natural wear or deliberate destruction you can still recycled up an interesting solution is carpeting for cows shares but we'll find out more about that later in one year alone the British public scrapped over 14 million tires but just over 10 percent of them were actually recycled first they're collected at state-of-the-art facilities like this one the first stack we're recycling attire is to check its condition some still have some life in them these can be sold on to dealers or shipped to other countries however if the tire gets a red mark it's beyond repair and must be destroyed the sorting process is done by this machine which used to sort mail bags at the post office now instead of bags of letters the camera scans tires if it's not sunny with red marks they're sent to the pile to be destroyed tires with anyone after them can be we can't or sold on where they will go depends on how warm they are the sorting system identifies the right bin to put the tire in and it's released to await its beta [Music] the red mark means recycle only but this is no easy task the recycling plant can't just rip them apart modern tires are made up of many elements including rubber steel bands and man-made fibers there are a lot of different things there to deal with the first stage of the recycling process is the shredder breaking the tires down will help to separate the metal from the rubber tires that end up here certainly won't be rolling along the open road again in the shredded pieces that emerge you can clearly see the metal and fibers within the tire which still need to be separated out to do this the rubber and metal chokes must be ground down several more times until that much much smaller [Music] this conveyor belt contains a powerful magnet as it passes over two finer shreds the steel is collected the metal industry will pay good money for this abundant source of scrap the magnet has removed most of the metal but there's always some leftover the next machine shakes it up and then pours it across smaller magnets the remaining fragments should be caught as the rubber passes through the grate and this is what you're left with black gold no no toil but pure rubber every year this facility can recycle 30,000 tons of old tires one of the more ingenious uses for this week's cycled rubber carpeting for cows to make it the rubber is heated to around 50 degrees Celsius too hot and it sticks together too cold and it won't mix it has to be right new chemicals are mixed and that will help to create a firm and durable new rubber [Music] next silicon is sprayed over the forms this will stop the recycled rubber sticking to the pan it's a bit like when you use a cake Tim the machine will now measure out 50 kilos of the fresh rubber mix into each form but then fed into the ovens to cook at 150 degrees Celsius that rubber melts together and takes on its new shape [Music] what emerges is a gigantic mask similar to the type you might find in a school gymnasium for PE class the workers strip off the edges to get the max into the right shape but what will they be used for well it sounds unusual but research shows that a comfortable environment includes milk productivity these match will be laid to soften the footing for dairy cattle mats need holes to help with drainage these are cut using a very unusual knife it doesn't use a metal blade instead it uses water pressurized to almost four tons per square centimeter it's incredibly powerful and slices through the fresh rubber with news [Music] the Macs are now ready and just need to be installed like fitting carpet to the farmer lays them down before letting the count back in it's hoped that by easing the pressure on their hooves whose like these will be more comfortable and more productive apparently comfy cows produce more milk the more milk for cares produced the more the farmer profits so everyone benefits just one of the many new uses for old tires transformed along the road of recycling white granulated sugar Britain eats more than 2 million tons of the stuff every year now you may not believe this but hope of that is made in the UK using the humble sugar beet related to the popular purple beetroot sugar beets tulips out as a seed they're coated with nutrients to improve growth and then planted eighty days later and here's the result the sugar tea plants are whitening steadily in the Sun like any other green plant the beet grows through the process of photosynthesis sunlight absorbed through the leaves is converted into chemical energy that produces glucose and oxygen when the beets are grown massive tractors harvest the crop they pick it and prepare it all in one go first the leaves are removed they are no use to sugar production so my staff now the beets themselves can be done out of the ground to be collected into the father staff as they follow the guiding tube into the machinery that forced up into the holding basket the Hollister's can collect more than 25 tons of beats every hour they're loaded up and sent on to the enormous processing plant British farms produce almost 7 million tons of sugar beet every year the soil in Lincolnshire and Essex is ideal for growing this useful vegetable the sugar they produce will sweeten tea coffee cakes and desserts however before they will go anywhere near a cake or a copper they need a good wash what emerges from the other side is freshly scrubbed beet ready to be turned into granulated sugar next the big lumpy vegetables need to be cut down into chips but it will be fine but this machine makes the pieces smaller sort of natural sugars can be reached tons and tons of beet chips are passed into these enormous boilers and the hot water gets to work [Music] cooking the chips helps release the elements from the beat into the water these elements are what will be used to make this shove the width [Music] the leftover chips aren't wasted they are compressed into little nibble sized pieces and boosters and food apparently they're very popular with rabbits now to make sugar this sweet water is what the manufacturers want but first it needs to be cleaned the water contains many elements which would ruin the final flavor so lime water is added which filters out the unwanted material the pure sugar water passes through the filter and can now be refined in this condition it's not very thick and the sugar concentration is quite low to sweeten it a mixture is sent through six different boilers as it passes through each one more and more water is boiled off leaving a thick sweet syrup by the end the sugar syrup is a dark brown color and actually looks like frothy chocolate milk it must now be boiled down again under very low pressure and this final boiling process creates crystals within the liquid this is the sugar we are all familiar with the crystallized syrup is now spun in a centrifuge the brown liquid passes and leaving the white crystals behind which can now be collected Britain makes about home off of its own sugar in this fashion the other half is imported and it's usually made from sugarcane instead most of this is grown in the Caribbean and Africa sweet utt the crystallized sugar must now be packaged up the standing water kilogram bag is filled and packed down alternately you may prefer to use sugar cubes raw sugar is moistened and pressed into cube forms as the conveyor belt moves forward tiny plungers force the new tubes out these kids can now be collected in neat rows and placed into a box ready to fill the sugar bowls in tea rooms all over Britain so thanks to the beetroots cousin and a lot of hard work you can now enjoy a hot sweet cup of tea starter karma the doormat stands guard over your home protecting your carpets from the outside world what is this got to do with coconuts and adapting your culture on an LPG is one alternative to petrol will show you how simple it is to do after the break [Music] [Music] autum it's the perfect time of year for a nice walk in the park but rain and mud me that when you get home the dirt and leaves stuck to your shoes may ruin your carpet one brilliant solution comes from coconuts or the coconut husk to be more precise coconut husk fiber known as quoi is used to make doormats its antibacterial properties help to kill germs it's absorbent which traps water and most importantly it's tough which helps remove unwanted dirt coconut fiber doormats start their lives here - at the quoi are woven into long threads which are kept on big spools these reels feed the mapmaking machine it takes the fiber from six coconuts to make just one doll mass so the factory needs a plentiful supply when a real runs low it's connected to another one to keep a continual feed to the machine the worker must weave the reels together because any notes would Jam the whole system the map machine sits like a big spider at the center of an enormous coconut thread web 400 lines are fed simultaneously through these holes to form the basis for the doormats now to make a mat using this coconut husk the secret ingredient is glue the fibrous threads on woven together they all sit vertically on the mat the glue is used as a foundation for the threads first this guillotine slices the fibers into the right lengths these lengths then fall into the glue base waiting below as the knife slices through the fiber the shape of the funnel forces the pieces to fall vertically where they land in the waiting glue in the case of this doormat the fiber lengths are cut to about 16 millimeters the perfect height for cleaning a pair of trainers or muddy hiking boots the fibers are pressed to make sure they're seated firmly and the whole blue fiber combination is then passed over a large heating place this hardens the glue and seals the bristles into place to keep quality of the workers take regular samples from each roll of new doormat the first test they must undergo is the strength test using a tension device and a pair of pliers the work and we'll analyze how much pressure is needed to wrench the bristles free from the glue base if the bristles survive more than six kilos of pressure they've passed the next test measures the match resilience this robotic device looks like it's from a sci-fi film set but it's not that sophisticated its job is to walk up and down continually this simulates many hours of use and tests and durable the doormat is and one of the most important qualities of the modern doormat is absorbency to help stop mud and water coming into your home it's important they can trap liquid effectively no damp footprints mean the coconut fiber is doing its job well with the quality assured that doormats can now be cut into shape first the rough edges are cut off and a haircut follows using the guillotine which looks like a lawnmower this machine will trim the fibers down to eat uniform length next comes the shape many mats can be cut from each new roll the workers collect them up and they're sent on to the print department popular designs range from a big welcome sign to the colors of your favorite football team the logos will be applied here [Music] first a layer of glue is laid down corresponding to the desired shape this is then followed by several different layers of statically charged colored flakes the flakes stick to the glue and a picture eventually emerges the static helps attract dirt from the users shoes so even the picture on the mat helps to keep your hands clean the final step is to clean the mats off during the production process plenty of dirt and fibers may have been caught and no one wants to buy and dirty mat these machines dislodge anything that may be stuck in place and finally the mat is finished so having started like protecting the flesh of the coconut the Koala now protects your home from dirty shoes [Music] the price of petrol is rising it's getting so bad that some petrol pump bandits drive off without paying for it then there's the environments are consider so what's the alternative well last year more than 15,000 UK drivers converted their cars to run on LPG car producers in Germany are known for their gas guzzlers but their attitudes are changing too liquid petrol gaskets that driver several benefits over normal petrol at this small German garage the conversion process begins with the addition of a new tank it's installed and the spare tire well the mechanic cuts a hole in the bodywork this is where the fuel line will travel from the tank to the engine it takes care to smooth off any rough edges so nothing is damaged the new tank can now be fitted into place with its opening through the freshly cut holes a gas line is fitted into the mouth of the tank which includes a safety valve standards must be kept high when dealing with flammable fuels the gas will flow down a pipe along the bottom of the car it will eventually arrive here where another valve is being fitted this valve connects the LPG system to the existing petrol system and must be securely attached LPG gives you fewer miles per litre than petrol but LPG is also around half the price so the benefits are obvious there's also a gas filter similar to a standard natural filter and a pressure regulator to make sure nothing goes wrong with everything in place the mechanics can take the converted car out for a test drive for over nine million LPG cars worldwide and petrol stations are also converting to offer this cheaper fuel in the UK there are over 1,300 for course providing this environmentally friendly alternative the filling process is much like feeding a standard petrol tank the only difference being the nozzle is screwed into the fuel slot so nothing is spilt by accident like the coal conversion process can also be transformed the tanks are specially made like ordinary fuel tanks and because LPG is a liquid not gas it doesn't need to be stored under high pressure driving around with a spare tank full of flammable gas monkey sound like a risky proposition but extensive testing over the last 30 years has helped develop better storage facilities which will survive massive impacts quite safely even when the scientists tested these tanks and extreme conditions if you improve any more dangerous than your ordinary petrol tank even when exposed to this test fire burning at over 1,000 degrees Celsius and as the tanks aren't highly pressurized risk of explosions is also lower there's one other useful benefit cheaper fuel is an obvious one but by keeping two different fuel tanks you can now travel further with fewer fuel stops here the mechanics are testing that the LPG system is working perfectly even when the boss gives it some gas or should I say liquidity as the level drops towards empty a flick of the switch returns the car to petrol power so the LPG option gives the driver two tanks to choose from they'll just have to find somewhere else to store the spare tire [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 1,083,852

Rating: 4.6941791 out of 5

Keywords: How it Works, How It's Made (TV Program), How its made, Sugar (Ingredient), Tire (Industry), Recycling (Industry), LPG, How it's made LPG, How it works LPG, Food (TV Genre), Tire Recycling, Start, Engine, Tank, Ride, Gas, Bus, Liquefied Petroleum Gas, Gasoline (Fuel)

Id: ovvF-6q5kCU

Length: 23min 32sec (1412 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 16 2014