A concept-stage research project exploring passive, gravity-driven microplastic separation for high-rise water systems.
Supported by FifeCIC — a Community Interest Company registered in Scotland.
Site: https://fifecic.github.io/VortexCore/
Nothing has been built, tested or certified.
| Engineering concept | Described and internally consistent |
| Calculated physics | Partial — not independently checked |
| Prototype or test rig | Does not exist |
| Simulation output | Does not exist |
| Independent test data | Does not exist |
| Patent application | None filed |
| Certification | None held |
| Pilot site or partner | None |
| Commercial entity | None |
This is stated up front because the alternative — publishing an idea that reads like a product — misleads the exact people whose help the project needs.
Every tall building pumps water to a roof tank and then discards the resulting pressure through a pressure-reducing valve. Vortex Core proposes spending that pressure instead: a tangential inlet converts head pressure into rotational velocity, forcing the water into a tight vortex where density does the sorting. Heavier-than-water plastics (PET, PVC) are thrown outward and collected; lighter-than-water polymers (PE, PP) migrate into the low-pressure core and are skimmed from it. The small reject stream is evaporated using the building's own waste heat, leaving dry plastic for recycling rather than a liquid discharge.
The open question is not whether centrifugal separation works — it is whether it works on the particle sizes that matter, at the pressures a real building provides.
The force required to separate a particle rises with the square of its inverse size. At 50 µm, separating polyethylene needs around 147 G. At 5 µm, the same relationship gives roughly 14,679 G. The design point is 2,500–3,000 G. That comfortably covers larger particles and smaller dense ones, but not the smallest buoyant plastics.
There is a second risk of equal weight: a chamber tuned to eject heavy PET can concentrate light polypropylene into the stream it declares clean. Any design must demonstrate that it does not simply move the problem from one polymer to another.
See feasibility.html for the full list of open questions and the intended route to answering them.
index.html Overview - the problem, the idea, and the honest status
technology.html The concept - pressure budget, three-stage separation, the physics
feasibility.html What exists and what does not; the five open questions
interest.html How to get involved, and what this is not
docs/
SIMULATION-BRIEF.md Specification for the Phase 0 modelling study
assets/
css/site.css Single shared stylesheet
img/ Diagrams and FifeCIC branding
scripts/
check-site.mjs Validates every page and diagram before publication
generate-device-diagram.mjs Builds the chamber cross-section
generate-gchart.mjs Builds the G-force requirement chart
Plain static HTML. No build step, no framework, no dependencies to install. Serve the directory and it works. The published pages load no JavaScript at all - there is no script tag on any page.
Diagrams are hand-authored or generated SVG, committed as files. They scale to any device, print cleanly, and together weigh less than 25 KB. Superseded diagram versions are kept rather than overwritten, and each carries a version stamp inside the artwork so a screenshot or printout can be identified.
scripts/check-site.mjs runs on every push (see .github/workflows/validate-site.yml). It checks
that local references resolve, that SVG comments contain no illegal --, that every drawn and
animated coordinate sits inside its viewBox, and that every page has a title, description, Open
Graph tags and image alt text.
- No unmeasured performance figures. No removal efficiency, energy saving or payback figure appears as a finding until it has been measured and independently checked. Design targets stay labelled as targets.
- No legal status without a document. No claim of a patent application, granted patent or registered trademark unless the filing exists and can be referenced. Current status: none filed.
- Negative results get published too. If modelling shows the concept does not work at the sizes that matter, that finding is published in the same place as the concept.
The most valuable contribution available today is a technical opinion — particularly on particle transport in high-shear rotational flow, or on hydrocyclone cut points and wear.
No investment is being sought, no equity is available, and there is no commercial entity in relation to Vortex Core. This is a research enquiry, not an offering.
Concept and design rights reserved. The intellectual-property position is being explored; nothing has been filed. See LICENSE.