How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

thanks exalibur l see your air inlet is in the bottom l do it in middle l will try like yours.l like your adruino project l will try it in future l program copter board so l know how to upload and biulding boards. did you know where l can find gui l meant a nice program that you see tempreture on pc

Thanks. I'm also looking for a nice program to display temperatures too. Anyone know of such a program??

Yes, the air inlet needs to be at the bottom to take full advantage of the swirling flame front and maximize heat transfer.

[jose manu]

simple is to keep it simple ...

I'm not sure if your comments are directed at me or the previous poster who made statements about how "simple" this is.

The answer is in the opening of the thread on the very first page, and it is yes, but not as simplistically as implied by Ksushi or yourself . You can equally describe the principle of operation of an internal combustion engine, but can't call it "simple". Same for plastic pyrolysis to liquid fuel. There are many ways to achieve temperature control and fluid management. We're not reinventing the wheel here, just educating the public on available hardware and processes that can be achieved by ambitious backyard tinkerers, using a variety of feedstock.

if you read through this thread, you'll spare everyone yet another regurgitation (and less additional/redundant pages) of the same thing to a newbie who demands to have their questions answered but are not willing to read. And it doesn't stop there. After the initial inquiry is answered, new follow-up questions come up, all of which had been answered to nauseum in the earlier pages anyway. Questions are encouraged of course, but not attitudes that are openly against reading....on their first post nonetheless.


I'm sorry but if you don't want to bother with reading what many put so much effort in writing for the benefit of people like you, why do you expect the same people to bother themselves and give you special attention?

it’s all about the journey not the destination....and getting values .Thank you Marso, I have been reading all those pages since 4 days....and really appreciate all the stages and experiences ,test,fails ,and success of most of you...

[jonathan]

retort burner

thanks exalibur l see your air inlet is in the bottom l do it in middle l will try like yours.l like your adruino project l will try it in future l program copter board so l know how to upload and biulding boards. did you know where l can find gui l meant a nice program that you see tempreture on pc

[Excalibur]

so thanks excalibur for your help.l try to control air but no success then l try put another pipe in the middle pipe. so air didnt pass to flame directly first hit the second pipe. it works very well. l dont no the proplem why maybe my middle pipe with holes is small in diameter.on the internet l see them with holes in middle pipe

Jonathon
Sorry but I'm not using the style of turk design that you are. It's the first time I've seen it so I can't say how it works or how to fix it.
I hope you can sort it. If it were me, I would remove the 'middle pipe with holes' and re-angle the air inlet like mine. I've used 1.5" and 3" inlets with success. Exhaust is 3".
Turks use high velocity swirl to get good efficiency and high heat. Incidentally, on all my builds the retort forms the very core of the turk. See my blog archives for early prototype design.
Hope this helps.

[jonathan]

retort burner

so thanks excalibur for your help.l try to control air but no success then l try put another pipe in the middle pipe. so air didnt pass to flame directly first hit the second pipe. it works very well. l dont no the proplem why maybe my middle pipe with holes is small in diameter.on the internet l see them with holes in middle pipe

[mjohnson1]

I found a nice source of scrap plastic.

Drywall contractors use drywall compound which come in HDPE plastic buckets. The guy I talked to had 10 stacks 12 feet/3 meters high. He gets around 30-50 buckets a week. I'm just soaking them in water then shredding them up.

[mtrans]

BB - Shell,BP or?

[Beyond Biodiesel]

The BB forum is still down. The error message is different though. Is it coming back soon?

I think the forum is gone. Someone hacked it, and I do not have much interest in starting it all over again from scratch.

[jonathan]

retort burner

thanks excalibur but there is no blueprints how to do it my burner burn like that orange and very clean but fire is in the tube only l want it like that videos outside thanks

[Excalibur]

Thanks, imakebiodiesel, that looks like a useful way of consuming the glycerin and animal fat I have stockpiled.

Good idea for my stockpile too. Plus I could use for auxiliary heat for the turk.

The BB forum is still down. The error message is different though. Is it coming back soon?

[Excalibur]

thanks excalibur l found this on internet but l leave 3 inch from bottom to holes and l put copper pipe about l inch under the holes it work clean fire l mean orange no black fumes but not huge flame

Much simpler is this ,,,, or this

[mjohnson1]

For my continual feeding system i'm using a premelt tube. It's basically a vertical steel tube with some heating elements surrounding it.

The idea is to melt the plastic and allow it to turn into a liquid (150-200C). Once it's a liquid the purge gas will be able to bubble up and any air trapped in there will also bubble up.

It's kind of like the water seal on a bubbler. Once it's setup and you keep a minimum level of liquid plastic in the tube you can add more and feed it into the reactor without worrying about air getting in.

[jonathan]

retort

its good idea lowriderzz l like that design keep it up if my system works well l will try that

[lowriderzzz]

Idea on how to bring new feedstock into the system while operating.

Having a way to add more feedstock while the unit still process the other seems to me energy efficient, since that way you already use the pre generated heat from the initial heating up.

Here on this picture is how I was thinking for a way to put new and continual feedstock into the system.



http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8938/e2f9.png


If someone has a better suggestion please, let me know.

1. You open the lid secondary lid.
2. Put new feedstock
3. Seal the lid back
4. Open the valve and let the new feedstock go in the main retort.
5. Close back the valve

And the process can be repeated as much as necessary.

[jonathan]

retort burner

thanks excalibur l found this on internet but l leave 3 inch from bottom to holes and l put copper pipe about l inch under the holes it work clean fire l mean orange no black fumes but not huge flame