How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[lowriderzzz]

rough content for ebook

here is a pretty rough content for the ebook.


The set up
- Equipment required
- Retort
- Catalyst column
- Reflux column
- Condensers
- Bubbler
- Connecting pipes
- Measurement equipment
- Burners

Experiments
- Different temperatures
- Trying with different sorts of feedstock
- Different catalyst


The feedstock
- Plastic types
- The science behind the cracking process
The catalyst
- High active ones
- Low active ones

Test your results
- Viscosity test
- Octane test
- Water content
- Weight test



Any comments regarding adding other chapters and the order of those ones would be appreciated.

[ashiki]

Kaowool is good to 1200'c or so.

Thanks Excalibur !
i got kaowool,and now it withstands the temparature!

[kvdb111]

A very good day to you all....
Let me introduce myself I am Kobus van den Berg.
From South Africa.
I have jumped ahead into the future to see where it is now at.
You see I am actually from the past as I am now only at thread nr 1087
And more than 2 years behind you on this thread.
I will catch up soon.
BTW a e book with the important threads would be fantastic.

Ok bye for now got to go back to the past.

[lowriderzzz]

Yes. I already started collecting the informative posts from the most experienced folks. I started with imbd's posts and I will scan through yours too if you don't mind use them.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

lowriderzzz, an ebook sounds like a good idea to me. It might just reduce the number of repeats we have to do.

[lowriderzzz]

How about a comprehensive easy to follow ebook on the subject ?

Hi folks. I was wondering will it be useful if an ebook is made based on the posts in this thread. One with content pages, precise instructions, required equipment etc. ? I see many questions get repeated over and over again by new members (my self including).

This will primarily benefit the non experienced. So what you think ?


Second part of the question will be to those of you with marketing and business sense. Do you think the need to have this info in order and by step by step is so deep so anyone would pay for buying such an ebook ? Of course if its made professional and with proper advertising ?

[lowriderzzz]

The refluxing zone needs to only be about 1/4 to 1/3 the volume of the retort, and it should be packed, insulated, and heated to the same temperature of the retort; or otherwise your bottom ends will boil for ever refluxing off your reflux and back into your boiler.

Thanks I have that in consideration. I've already cut it in half and I plan to insulate it. If i see it is still cold I will have to electrically heat it too.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

I've just made my reflux column with removable cap for my experimental 8 litters batch unit, but I'm thinking the length of the whole column is too large.

How do you think ?

Its currently 117 cm with the cap and only the column is 1 meter. And also 5,6 cm in diameter.

The refluxing zone needs to only be about 1/4 to 1/3 the volume of the retort, and it should be packed, insulated, and heated to the same temperature of the retort; or otherwise your bottom ends will boil for ever refluxing off your reflux and back into your boiler.

[lowriderzzz]

this post for one idea

this would be fine for you

Nice thank you.

[Excalibur]

Do you have and are you willing to post/send some picture regarding the mounting of the Thermocouple Temperature Sensor ?

What device you use to actually see the indicated temperature ?

this post for one idea

this would be fine for you

[mjohnson1]

Thanks once more. I never thought about the ratio catalyst/feedstock. You don't have a reflux column so you put your zeolite and pottery strait in the retort ?

Do you have and are you willing to post/send some picture regarding the mounting of the Thermocouple Temperature Sensor and the Mould Cartridge Heater ?

What device you use to actually see the indicated temperature ? Do you use PID controler with screen or simple electronic thermometer? In other words where do these sensors get plugged ?


Cheers

For the thermocouple drill a hole slightly larger than the thermocouple and weld it to the pipe. This will give you an airtight seal.

Make sure you're running low heat when welding near the center part and take breaks to allow it to cool.

I've tried drilling/tapping but there's still leaks due to the way the center of the thermocouple is able to slide.

Amazon.com: IMAGEŽ 25A SSR-25DA Solid State Relay with Heat Sink+ Manual/ Auto-tuning PID Temperature Controller SNR: Home Improvement

That's the PID/ssr I purchased.

For the mould cartridge heater just weld some half inch steel plate into a frame around it to dissipate the heat into your rig. The idea is you're creating a sort of heat sink because these things get red hot real quick.

[fibuslitero]

Hi:
Yes, 20% PS and 80% PP/PE, this way fuel is almost perfect

you mean 20% PS and 80% PP or PE. That is still acceptable since I have plenty PS garbage around.

[lowriderzzz]

I agree with mj1, the reflux is most likely too tall. If it was me, I'd use Heat wrap. Fire up the retort with heat wrap on the reflux, then only remove enough to maintain the temperature.

This is good idea.

[Excalibur]

I've just made my reflux column with removable cap for my experimental 8 litters batch unit, but I'm thinking the length of the whole column is too large.

How do you think ?

Its currently 117 cm with the cap and only the column is 1 meter. And also 5,6 cm in diameter.

I agree with mj1, the reflux is most likely too tall. If it was me, I'd use Heat wrap. Fire up the retort with heat wrap on the reflux, then only remove enough to maintain the temperature.

[Excalibur]

I must confess I have not played with Arduino products at all and should probably investigate this avenue. Or RaspPi for that matter.

The particular PLC's I use on a regular basis can be found here along with all data relating to them. They are fairly inexpensive and thus far I have had no issues getting them to function. Additionally, touch screen displays can be integrated to the PLC to display real time values for whichever parameters you decide to set up. The display also allows the programming of manual controls (for doing sanity checks on code and manual fine tune adjustments to logic parameters instead of having to always have a PC connected to the PLC).

These particular PLC's have expansion slots for analog and digital I/O's discrete I/O's networking modules and other things. See the website for more details.

As pertains to coding. The language used for coding PLC's is ladder logic. It is extremely rudimentary from a language aspect but with that goes simplicity of learning. I spent about a week studying the manuals and some simple ladder logic programs and had a fairly firm grasp on programming.

I hope this helps and I'm continuing to read through the posts.

Has any discussion been had regarding the process of "Thermal Depolymerization" - it is essentially the artificial manufacture of crude from organic compounds by mimicking conditions necessary to produce crude in nature (i.e. High Press., High Temp, No/min O2) You can wikipedia a decent article on the subject.

Thanks for the link and pointers. By comparison, I've had nothing to do with PLC's though they are common in the factories I have worked at. It would be hard to beat Arduino for price. I bought a Mega 2650 for US$21 landed off HongKong Ebay. The sheer affordability has transformed the DIY microcontroller scene. However, price isn't everything and I'm sure the PLC would have some decided advantages.
It took me all of a week to learn the basics with only online manuals and forums. My Arduino PID project is on my blog pages, link below.

There was some discussion about thermal depolymerization I seem to recall a couple of months ago. No doubt you'll get to it.