How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[jonathan]

retort,reflux,condensor

l am from malta in europe thanks my friend

[placebo]

this is my pyrolysis design retort,reflux and lst condensor l am going to do another condensor and bubbler if some one can help me? my question is to purge the system what l can do? l read that l can put some water in retort? thanks

Hi Jonathan,

Where are you located ? - Looks beautiful wherever you are!

[jonathan]

retort,reflux,condensor

ok thanks my friend very helpfull thanks god bless good day

[waterboost]

Dangers

We use the batch machine indoors, we tested it outside, but it was cold

If there were any chance of blowing ourselves up it would have happened by now.

The new continuous loading machine we have developed is now up to version 3 due to problems with the plastic becoming unworkable as it changes from fluff, to waxy solid to a liquid.... we have had to keep re-designing the hopper...

During our steep learning curve we have had some serious vapour releases, pressure build up and fuel being squirted out of the hopper... in fact everything that could go wrong has.... and we are still here, no burns or missing fingers...

Just dont use candles for lighting and avoid sparks and smoking when something goes wrong.... as long as your kit is designed properly, it should be safer than walking up and down stairs



The compressor is a small lab one that can be used for sucking or blowing... it has barbed fitting on the in and out

[jonathan]

retort,reflux,condensor

did u have some pictures to take an idea for compresor ? what type?

[jonathan]

retort,reflux,condensor

ok thanks my friend l read everywhere about risk of explosion? l dont think its very dangerous?

[waterboost]

Purging

You could test it for leaks with water?

But there is no need to purge it, the gases produced when it startes will purge it

You could run a compressor to pull the air out as you start, I have tried that and it seems to speed things up...

[jonathan]

retort,reflux,condensor

this is my pyrolysis design retort,reflux and lst condensor l am going to do another condensor and bubbler if some one can help me? my question is to purge the system what l can do? l read that l can put some water in retort? thanks

[batwicho]

Thanks for the photos batwicho, the bottom clear liquid in your sample must be water. I guess the cloudy layer is either an emulsion layer, or wax.

YES, the bottom is water, the emulsion is some "waste". Next week i'll have answer from our laboratory about the mix.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Thanks for the photos batwicho, the bottom clear liquid in your sample must be water. I guess the cloudy layer is either an emulsion layer, or wax.

[batwicho]

Yesterday I ran my old machine which experimented 2 years ago ... Still work , simple design and the results here...

[Allcanadian]

@Mporse
Wow that is a real interesting weld job, looks like you need way more heat. I imagine you have an AC machine so I would use a 7018 1/8" rod just to cap it. Weld in a horizontal position(work is flat, rod near 45 Degrees) and crank the freaking heat up to at least 100-110 Amps or drop a rod size to 3/32 at 80-90 Amps. I prefer the smaller rod at high heat running it fast.

The trick to a good weld is the puddle, once you strike her up watch the puddle of molten metal behind the rod and if it starts bunching up or getting higher your moving to slow or you need more heat. The puddle is flat and as you move along it does it's own thing and run a test bead then break the slag to make sure it's slightly higher than your work(no undercut) and you have enough heat. As well if your just capping with 7018 then you don't need a lot of pressure and pretend it is just a wax rod touching a hot surface and let it melt in and move at it's own pace, just keep the angle off vertical, 30-45 Degrees with very little pressure.

If you want to really weld it then taper the weld joints and run something like a 6014 rod with more pressure in the root of the weld then cap it with 7018. I use two off the shelf rods, 60 for the root and 7018 to cap and you can weld damn near anything including cast and spring steel. I'm not saying cast is easy or the right way of doing things but it can be done,lol.

P.S. -- I should mention AC welders suck and given the choice a DC machine is definitely the way to go. I have a nice little Miller Econotig that is 12 years old and it has run flawlessly, as well in those 12 years I have never used the AC setting once.

AC

[Rich Connell]

Shredded Plastic

Hello,

In a later post you stated that you could obtain 1,000 kg of shredded plastic for about $50. I cannot find any suppliers here in the Southern California area so was hoping you might tell me who or where I should go to get a quote?

Thank you for your assistance.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to say: AMAZING THREAD! It is really inspiring to see so many people who are working with a topic like this

I have read the whole thread twice now, and I got inspired to build my own unit with a friends help (just as a prototype in the beginning, to see if I could get it to work).

We then ran the test again, but had to stop it because more vapor started to come out of the retort through tiny holes in the welds.

My questions to all of you with knowledge about this topic is:

Why can't we keep our system shut?

Why does vapor keep coming from the lid?

And (most importantly): What do you guys think my friend and I can do to seal the lid, so we can stop the vapor from coming out of the system?

We have both thought about using sealants and silicone to seal the lid, but all of the materials we have found all melt at the cracking temperature for plastic, so we really don't know what to do here.

I know this was quite a long post, but it is really important for us to find out what's wrong, because we can't obviously find the mistake ourselves.

Thanks a lot, and keep up the good work!

That sounds like a good idea Waterboost

Unfortunately, we really don't know anyone who is REALLY good at welding, so that might be a problem...

Do you have any other suggestions? For example, do you know a material that can withstand the high temperatures of the cracking process, which we can use to seal our retort?

Or maybe, do you know how to make prober welds?

I guess we can find the answer to the last question by simply making a search on Google
Just thought I would ask in this forum because many people probably know a lot about this.

Thanks again!

Thanks for the pictures and the post, and good to know that you read through the thread, now don't bother to reinvent the wheel, instead buy some descent flanges and a proper graphite seal that works with those flanges.

[Mporse]

Just saw your latest post now mjohnson, so just ignore my previous post.

Yes, the things you are suggesting would really help us out. I will talk to my friend about this tomorrow, and then we can find a good solution based on what you have suggested.

Thanks a lot