How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Hello ;
Extracting Turpenes from sawdust .....
Have you done it yourself ???
If yes than you have done a wonderful Job .
Like to share your experience ???

If you haven't experimented yet ;
Than I think so you are trying to say about waste Bio-mass pyrolysis to OIL ...
What I know that Not only sawdust, waste lumber-wood but other waste Bio-masses like Corncobs, rice hush, grape seeds, wheat waste, sugar-cane waste etc etc can be pyrolysed into crude oil .
But this Oil is very thick/black & cannot be used directly as diesel/kerosene oil.

I ran my engine for about 200 miles on Pure Gum Turpentine blended at 20% with WVO at 80%. It ran great, so I am now heading to extracting my own terpenes. And, yes some terpenes are thick, but that is why we are discussing here thermal cracking and distillation.

The question arose: is the temps required to crack say a 30W oil less than temps required to crack a 90W oil as feedstocks? I'm reasoning that the boiling points are different for the two fluids but are these relevant to cracking levels? Or am I completely wrong with the theory?
Thanks

Thermal cracking happens at elevated temperatures (260c up). The more complex the hydrocarbon chain, then the higher its boiling point, and the more unstable that molecule becomes, so it is more likely to crack at elevated temperatures.

Hmm, would sheets of chipboard be of any use for this?

It contains quite a few other chemicals in the form of resins & waxes etc but i can lay my hands on literally tons of this on a very regular basis?

Yes, chip board should work, but turpentine is volatile, so the older the wood, the more processed the wood, the less turpentine you will find.

The sources of crackable hydrocarbons are vast, so we cannot expect someone to have tried cracking all of the sources. There is a simple principle at work here in a discussion of thermal cracking. Terpenes, resins, binders, waxes, plastics, algae oil are all hydrocarbons; therefore they are likely to crack, like any other complex hydrocarbon, at elevated temperatures into simpler hydrocarbons that can be condensed and burned like diesel fuel and gasoline.

[Uncorruptable]

Yes, chip board should work, but turpentine is volatile, so the older the wood, the more processed the wood, the less turpentine you will find.

.

Ok, the sheets of chip i can aquire are all completley new & dry, how do we go about cracking these once they have been chipped again?

Not intending to go down this route just yet but it will be looked into for sure, i can easily obtain a paallet full of 5 foot X 5 foot sheets x 5 foot high on a weekly maybe fortnightly basis.

[Excalibur]

Having consulted my electrician he has confirmed that i can use an old electric cooker for the purpose of heating, he has told me (as jetijs did way back on page 1) how to measure the output and wire needed via resistance from multimeter to replace the elements on the cooker, i will then use the controls from the oven, grill & one of the top rings to increase the heating power to the reactor. The combined power acheived will be 6 Kw from the three coils.

I have sourced materials for reflux column & will begin construction of that this weekend.

Fire bricks rated to 1500'c at €2.35 each, quite thin so i will have to work out how i am going to suspend the electric coils as i dont think i could afford to cut into the bricks, i want to be able to retain aas much 'wall' as possible to keep heat in, any ideas?

Please post pics of the cooker type you are using. Also the reflux construction.
Obviously you've seen post #26 with Jetijs slotted aluminum oxide bricks. This would make life easier but it looks like you've chosen plain thinner bricks. My assumption is that the coils will need considerable support. A thought was to run them vertical though I think the shear weight would make them sag with the red-hot heat. A second thought was to run the wire in "straight runs" up and down.
Google kiln images ...might be some good ideas here, like how the wire is held captive in a toaster.

[thissideup]

Please post pics of the cooker type you are using. Also the reflux construction.
Obviously you've seen post #26 with Jetijs slotted aluminum oxide bricks. This would make life easier but it looks like you've chosen plain thinner bricks. My assumption is that the coils will need considerable support. A thought was to run them vertical though I think the shear weight would make them sag with the red-hot heat. A second thought was to run the wire in "straight runs" up and down.
Google kiln images ...might be some good ideas here, like how the wire is held captive in a toaster.

Has anyone tried refractory cement? haven read anything about it yet, but maybe i missed it. should be cheaper than the bricks,

[Uncorruptable]

Please post pics of the cooker type you are using. ...might be some good ideas here, like how the wire is held captive in a toaster.

Here is the model cooker i will be using, the front left hob outputs 2000w, the grill element gives out 2000w, and it is not listed on the manual but the oven element gives out 1900w i have read elsewhere.

http://fiftyeggs.blob.core.windows.n...uals/D531A.pdf

I wonder, the metal housing of the elements, is it possible to reshape them to a circle? I would imagine they are brittle, but they carry a coiled wire inside that, i wonder could the outer housing be reshaped to carry the coiled wire in a circle?

[Uncorruptable]

Here is the unit,



And i will strip out the electronics & mount the dials i need on a seperate board and then discard the shell of the cooker,

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Ok, the sheets of chip i can aquire are all completley new & dry, how do we go about cracking these once they have been chipped again?

Not intending to go down this route just yet but it will be looked into for sure, i can easily obtain a paallet full of 5 foot X 5 foot sheets x 5 foot high on a weekly maybe fortnightly basis.

Anything can be used as a source of crackable hydrocarbons. So, your scraps of chip board should work fine. You may want to run them through a chipper to get them into manageable size to shovel into your retort.

Has anyone tried refractory cement? haven read anything about it yet, but maybe i missed it. should be cheaper than the bricks,

When I did research at The University of Arizona in the astronomy and optical sciences departments they made molds out of refractory cement to cast primary mirrors out of pyrex. So, it should work fine to mold a kiln out of. After all, the temperatures needed for cracking hydrocarbons are a lot lower than those needed for a kiln.

Here is the model cooker i will be using, the front left hob outputs 2000w, the grill element gives out 2000w, and it is not listed on the manual but the oven element gives out 1900w i have read elsewhere.

http://fiftyeggs.blob.core.windows.n...uals/D531A.pdf

I wonder, the metal housing of the elements, is it possible to reshape them to a circle? I would imagine they are brittle, but they carry a coiled wire inside that, i wonder could the outer housing be reshaped to carry the coiled wire in a circle?

A common stove, such as you are planning on using should work fine as a cracking unit; however, you may want to beef up the insulation with refractory board. You probably will not need for than an inch of refractory board in addition to the existing insulation in the stove.

Don't bother to reshape the elements in the stove, because they are brittle, and easily broken.

[Uncorruptable]

Anything can be used as a source of crackable hydrocarbons. So, your scraps of chip board should work fine. You may want to run them through a chipper to get them into manageable size to shovel into your retort.

I intended to reduce it to sawdust again, perhaps then mixed with WMO would be a good feedstock to get temp up?

A common stove, such as you are planning on using should work fine as a cracking unit; however, you may want to beef up the insulation with refractory board. You probably will not need for than an inch of refractory board in addition to the existing insulation in the stove.

Don't bother to reshape the elements in the stove, because they are brittle, and easily broken.

You misunderstand me, i intend to strip out all the electrics & relocate them in my reactor/kiln chamber with the dials being the only part retained outside for control, i will discard the shell of the cooker then after, i intend to use a 200l barrel (which i have a new one in perfect condition already).

Seeing as the wire inside the coil is most likley already the correct wire, perhaps breaking the outer housing off & then relocating it inside a circular bent copper coil that has been angle grinded in half to create a type of tray for it to sit in is an option for suspending the coils already there?

[CRMoore]

ERM on the run?

Here's good news or those who have been around for a year or so: ERM's website-the one that featured text and photos from this forum (w/o permission) seems to have finally bitten the dust. You just get a generic "being updated" screen when googling them.

[Excalibur]

I intended to reduce it to sawdust again, perhaps then mixed with WMO would be a good feedstock to get temp up?
You misunderstand me, i intend to strip out all the electrics & relocate them in my reactor/kiln chamber with the dials being the only part retained outside for control, i will discard the shell of the cooker then after, i intend to use a 200l barrel (which i have a new one in perfect condition already).
Seeing as the wire inside the coil is most likley already the correct wire, perhaps breaking the outer housing off & then relocating it inside a circular bent copper coil that has been angle grinded in half to create a type of tray for it to sit in is an option for suspending the coils already there?

The sawdust/oil slurry sounds interesting. It should work. It could even be pump-able with a slurry pump however your reactor isnt big enough to warrant a pump I suspect.

Funnily enough, I'd thought of using an oven for heating the reactor vessel.
It would be limited to the size vessel one could fit however if it were continuous feed, smaller may be some advantage.

Nichrome wire inside a copper coil would short out directly to the copper so it needs to be electrically insulated to the metal. Ceramic beads might do the trick. Ones with holes through their center. Some necklace beads are ceramic so this might be a cheap source. Hopefully you can get the nichrome out of the oven elements and re-use for your heaters. They must have their own ceramic insulators inside the oven coils?? A man is certainly bound to try, I know I would.

[Marso Green]

Inaccurate

Here's good news or those who have been around for a year or so: ERM's website-the one that featured text and photos from this forum (w/o permission) seems to have finally bitten the dust. You just get a generic "being updated" screen when googling them.

That post is inaccurate. Their website is still up.
Tires To Oil | Oil | tyres | Generator | Thermal depolymerisation | tires | tire | Waste | Into | Oil | ERM | fuel | diesel

Marso Green

[thissideup]

The sawdust/oil slurry sounds interesting. It should work. It could even be pump-able with a slurry pump however your reactor isnt big enough to warrant a pump I suspect.

Funnily enough, I'd thought of using an oven for heating the reactor vessel.
It would be limited to the size vessel one could fit however if it were continuous feed, smaller may be some advantage.

Nichrome wire inside a copper coil would short out directly to the copper so it needs to be electrically insulated to the metal. Ceramic beads might do the trick. Ones with holes through their center. Some necklace beads are ceramic so this might be a cheap source. Hopefully you can get the nichrome out of the oven elements and re-use for your heaters. They must have their own ceramic insulators inside the oven coils?? A man is certainly bound to try, I know I would.

Im almost certain you can buy heatinging elements just like your stove burner that you can shape before the first use. then heating them up cures them, as to where and how much, I have no idea.

[Uncorruptable]

Hopefully you can get the nichrome out of the oven elements and re-use for your heaters. They must have their own ceramic insulators inside the oven coils?? A man is certainly bound to try, I know I would.

I intend to take the elements out & place the long running piece of the first side into the jaws of my bench vice, turn until i have it gripped, & then ever so slowly inch it until the outer housing breaks, hopefully then it can be prized away from the wire, repeat alomg the entire element.

Im almost certain you can buy heatinging elements just like your stove burner that you can shape before the first use. then heating them up cures them, as to where and how much, I have no idea.

I'll have a look, thanks.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

I intended to reduce it to sawdust again, perhaps then mixed with WMO would be a good feedstock to get temp up?

Whatever is less effort will be something you will spend more time doing. A chipper is something that I might get if I find a source of free wood. Or, just follow the lumber crews around the forest and shovel their chips into a mobile retort.

I thought I would fuel the retort with the saw dust and chips that had been through the retort.

You misunderstand me, i intend to strip out all the electrics & relocate them in my reactor/kiln chamber with the dials being the only part retained outside for control, i will discard the shell of the cooker then after, i intend to use a 200l barrel (which i have a new one in perfect condition already).

Seeing as the wire inside the coil is most likley already the correct wire, perhaps breaking the outer housing off & then relocating it inside a circular bent copper coil that has been angle grinded in half to create a type of tray for it to sit in is an option for suspending the coils already there?

Recycling an oven to run a retort sounds like a good idea to me. But, a drum does not seem to be substantial enough to use as a retort, because all you need is a leak, and your whole operation goes up in flames spectacularly. How about recycling an old propane tank, or compressor tank, into a retort? Do make sure there is no more propane in the tank before you weld on it.

[Uncorruptable]

Whatever is less effort will be something you will spend more time doing. A chipper is something that I might get if I find a source of free wood. Or, just follow the lumber crews around the forest and shovel their chips into a mobile retort.

I thought I would fuel the retort with the saw dust and chips that had been through the retort.

Recycling an oven to run a retort sounds like a good idea to me. But, a drum does not seem to be substantial enough to use as a retort, because all you need is a leak, and your whole operation goes up in flames spectacularly. How about recycling an old propane tank, or compressor tank, into a retort? Do make sure there is no more propane in the tank before you weld on it.

Sorry if i am not being clear, i intend to house a reactor inside a drum as jetijs did, i am trying to source a good option for a reactor & am in contact with a compressor service enginneer i know who may be able to get me a 50litre cylinder.

What would you guys think about using a truck fuel tank?