How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Beyond Biodiesel]

PS. My whole distillation system has been run on solar since July. I have significant solar gain to run the WMO Distillation research project on, from sunrise to sunset, with 2,000 watts average gain during peek solar exposure from 10AM to 2PM.

Here is the 30 136watt Uni-solar panel array installed on the roof of the Sedona Research lab

Here is the battery array, combiner box, charge controllers, and 3500 watt inverter.

[jonathan]

plastic cracking

hello so whats better? right now l make retort reflux l am working on condensors and water bubbler and burn the fumes . is there something better like filter ? thanks

[Beyond Biodiesel]

hello so whats better? right now l make retort reflux l am working on condensors and water bubbler and burn the fumes . is there something better like filter ? thanks

Those are all of the steps that I am taking, but I also added a filter in the exhaust line; however, it disintegrated, so it will have to be a bag filter not a cartridge filter.

[mrwoodgas]

Hello,

the pictures that i posted yesterday where a bit small.
so i post tehm again.







Im reading a lot the last 6 months about converthing plastic to oil.
the only problem i have is how to separate the oil fractions.

Is there anyone who is willing to help me solve that problem?

Im not intending to use a catalyst to crack the oil.
I want keep it simple. the heavier fractions a want to use as a heating feul for my house. and store them in a pre heated tank.

Hello Beyond Biodiesel.
Do you have more pictures about your project?
Looks intresting.

Here two pictures of my other woodgasifier project.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Hello,
...Im reading a lot the last 6 months about converthing plastic to oil.
the only problem i have is how to separate the oil fractions.

Is there anyone who is willing to help me solve that problem?
...Hello Beyond Biodiesel.
Do you have more pictures about your project?
Looks intresting.

Here two pictures of my other woodgasifier project...

Thanks, mrwoodgas, for posting photos of your projects. It is interesting to note that you are interested in wood gasifying. I am too. I am planning on using my pyrolysis unit for extracting the volatiles from wood for fuel.

To respond to your request for a discussion of Condenser Designs, and we have many such questions, and clearly a lot of people have trouble with condenser designs, so I made a thread on my forum just on condenser designs.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Acidification of chlorinated hydrocarbons

This link will take you to a PDF of a patent granted to DuPont that discusses the issue:

The product of heating TCE and other chlorinated hydrocarbons results in acidification, which releases hydrogen chloride gas.

The conclusion is distilling and pyrolysis of hydrocarbons, such as waste motor oil and various plastics can release elemental chlorine atoms, which can bond with hydrogen to form hydrogen chloride gas. However, hydrogen chloride gas is easily contained and diluted in a bubbler. However, the water in the bubbler can very quickly become highly acidic; therefore if the bubbler receives a steady stream of water, such as the cooling water from condensers, then the exchange rate should be great enough to prevent the water in the bubbler from becoming dangerous.

My ice trap, which is below a 20 foot long copper coil has been collecting a clear aqueous-like liquid below it. Its color is a striking sky blue, which is like the tube on the right in the image of samples of copper(II) chloride below


You can find a larger discussion of hydrogen chloride gas in distillation and pyrolysis at this link
Precautions for operating a hydrocarbon cracking/distillation unit

[imakebiodiesel]

Ive had the blue water in my bubbler a couple of times. The pipework from my condenser to my bubbler is copper and now Im thinking could it have been caused by a small amount of pvc getting into my waste plastc. I know that one time I put in some used electrical insulating tape and I got blue water. If so this could be a useful warning device when my fuel has been contaminated. I could divert that acidic to heating oil instead of motor fuel. A damaged burner nozzle is cheap and easy to replace, unlike an engine injector system. Another more sophisticated method would be to monitor the acidity of the bubbler water.

[Luis]

Plastic to diesel difficulties

Good afternoon, I began my experiments turn plastic into diesel, but after doing a "distillation" after cooling most is paraffin. I'm doing something wrong, please help me.Thank you.Luis (Portugal)

[Excalibur]

Good afternoon, I began my experiments turn plastic into diesel, but after doing a "distillation" after cooling most is paraffin. I'm doing something wrong, please help me.Thank you.Luis (Portugal)

It sounds to me as though you have a reflux problem. See wiki There are lots of posts regarding the reflux on this forum. Please review.

[operatorX225]

Lots of good information about this topic here. Now I need to find a plastic scrap supplier with decent prices to make this all worthwhile. If anyone has any ideas or knows of any places it would be awesome! I live in the USA Louisiana to be exact

[MadCow]

hello everyone. i am new to this forum and glad that i havefound it. i am/was a member on oiltodiesel but came a bit late as there was no more useful info being post. i have been experimenting with wmo but havent had the success that i want. i am looking to improve my fuel straight out of the machine. i have worked on post production methods but would thats not good enough for me.

i have read through a lot of this thread and you guys look to have a great wealth of information going here and i am confident that you guys can asist me. my first setup was a simple keg in a barrel with some piping. i started adding some steel and copper scrubbers for packing but on improved a bit. fuel was lighter but still brown with the infamous tar formation after a few days. next i decided to go small scale for quick testings and changes. i made a 1 gallon paint can in 5 gallon buckt setup. fuel production was ok. i tried keeping the temp as low as will produce and the results were ok but not what i am looking for. i tried extreme high temp butnot great results again. not sure if i am cracking or just distilling.

here is an old vid of my first rig.


Refinery 017.avi - YouTube


Fuel 003.avi - YouTube


posting from mobile phone so hope those worked

my processes are very crude and cheap. i want to understand the process better before i invest any real money. thanks for the help everyone

[TheQuietDan]

possable free plastic supplier

The first place I thought of that would get lots of plastic trash is the laundrymats, should be able to get quite a bit of plastic for free, just ask for them to separate it out from the rest of the trash. If they are unwilling ask if you can go threw before they toss into the dumpster, you will be saving them lots of room each week. If nothing else go dumpster diving after hours to get it all.

[operatorX225]

Ah! laundrymats! never thought of that. WMO is quite easy to come by also. I will try to hassle the local recycling facilities to see if they would be willing to part with there plastics. Everyone I have called is setup with a plastic recycling plant that makes regrinds and things of that nature. The regrinds can be purchased but are more expensive than what I would consider paying. ~.25$ a pound where im from it would take 6-8lb's to make roughly a gallon. so 1.50-2.00 US dollars a gallon plus shipping to get the regrinds to me. I think it can be done for much cheaper

[operatorX225]

thermocouples

To analyze the temperature of my reactor and condensers I would like to use thermocouples. Is anyone using this type of device to monitor temperature and if so what are you using to log the temperatures. What I want is something similar to a DCS control system for a chemical plant but just to monitor everything all together. I understand at first I will be controlling everything manually which is not a problem. but I want to glance at a computer screen and it tell me what every thing is doing rather than messing around with a meter of some sort going from measuring point to measuring point.


ANSWERED my own question! Thermocouple Input Cards

im excited now

[mrwoodgas]

Here a little update from my project. im working on my fractionating column at the moment. its a packed stainless steel fractionating column. the packing is made of pieces stainlessteel tube.

Is there anyone who can give my some good advise to make a good working fractionating column?