How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

I have been gathering materials for my retort, and so far I have $0 invested. With that said, I have access to a good amount of 1" "black pipe" that I am hoping to use on my system. I have the retort welded into a 55 gallon oil drum already, and I have a removable lid on my retort. I am still gathering plumbing and temperature sensors and working on trying to control the heat input for a fuel-oil fired retort. The temperature sensors will control the speed of a 12V blower motor from an old truck I have out back, so I will have 4 fan speeds to work with for adjusting the temperature, but I have to figure out what sensors/switches to put in. For example, if I have four separate sensors that make contact at different temperatures, when a certain temperature is reached, each switch will put through a different resistance to the fan motor to either speed it up or slow it down... not a fully automated system, but allows some automation (in theory) depending on what temperature switches I can locate, but they should be a simple on/off temp switch, and hopefully something I can pickup at the local auto parts store. I have the 185°, 195°, and 210° (F) temperatures figured out, but higher figures are going to have to be located. And since I don't really have the money to be doing this, I am having to get creative!

That's innovative. Certainly resourceful! For your higher temperature sensors, what about old oven thermostats. The one I tweaked recently was adjustable. Stock setting was 260c (500f) and if I recall, I wound the adjustment closer to 400c (750f). I suppose you are going to use solid fuel to heat, I'm guessing?
Obviously a microcontroller would do it from the signal of a thermocouple but even though they are cheap, you still need to understand and set them up. Quite a few hours of study! I'm heading toward Arduino control and once I have the system running, the how to & details will be on my blog.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

... I am still gathering plumbing and temperature sensors and working on trying to control the heat input for a fuel-oil fired retort. The temperature sensors will control the speed of a 12V blower motor from an old truck I have out back, so I will have 4 fan speeds to work with for adjusting the temperature, but I have to figure out what sensors/switches to put in. For example, if I have four separate sensors that make contact at different temperatures, when a certain temperature is reached, each switch will put through a different resistance to the fan motor to either speed it up or slow it down... not a fully automated system, but allows some automation (in theory) depending on what temperature switches I can locate, but they should be a simple on/off temp switch, and hopefully something I can pickup at the local auto parts store. I have the 185°, 195°, and 210° (F) temperatures figured out, but higher figures are going to have to be located. And since I don't really have the money to be doing this, I am having to get creative!

I live and work in a warehouse district where there is an HVAC tech. He dumps all of his dead central heating and cooling systems by the dumpster and hopes I will dismantle them to retrieve parts that I need, which I often do. I saw some thermal switches and thought they would make really easy and cheap temperature controllers; however, when I Googled them I found that they are slow, imprecise and they generally do not make high temperatures ones. So, I went back to PID controllers and Arduinos

[Tplane37]

I do think the micro processors are going to be required for any reliable automation, especially regarding the temperature probes or sensors. One of the biggest concerns I have with using the automotive temperature sensors is that they don't read high enough temperatures and most of them have plastic on the sensors somewhere... Which will likely melt.

Another concern I have is that most of these sensors are calibrated for reading temperatures of liquids, not gases. This could result in other issues.

At least with the blower fan motor, I can manually select the four different fan speeds based on what I am visually seeing from the pyrometers. I'll work my way up to the electronics and a higher quality system once I can convince my other half that this actually works. After I prove that to her, she'll let me have some of my money to invest!

And yes, I am looking to use liquid fuel such as diesel... Or whatever fuel that the unit makes that isn't diesel since my main goal here is to make diesel for my truck and generators, the other fuels can be mixed together and used to hear the retort... Maybe.

[TheQuietDan]

the o2 senser or pyro for a turbo charger should work, but don't know how an o2 would be on measurements. The pyro for a diesel turbo will easily hit 900F.

[palmtrees]

diesel

I use a pyrolysis unit, much like what is discussed here to distill and crack WMO into fuel. The feed stock is not important, because any hydrocarbon can be cracked into a lighter hydrocarbon.

I do not distill WVO, I blend it with light fractions, such as gasoline, to make diesel fuel, then filter it, and it has run fine on my engine for more than 6 years.

I am planning on running animal fat, and the other heavy precipitates from my WVO blending through my pyrolysis unit, but I have not yet done so. I still have about 200 gallons of WMO to distill first.

I look at it as first work on the easy stuff, then work on the harder hydrocarbons.



Very interesting.

I am working on an Arduino system to control my pyrolysis unit, so I am interested in sharing ideas on that front, so I would like to hear more.

I recently received a 2560 mega board, and some shields. I have ordered an 8 TC mutitplexer shield for it. Excalibur and I are exploring it now and posting our findings on this thread Data acquisitation. Microcontroler project. Please post your ideas.

Hi i done a test on some wmo, i put about a liter in a paint tin with a 4 ft copper tube running out of the top of the lid slowly heated it up, after a 10mins we got liquid but it was still black so i turned up the heat then we got the clear liquid coming out, but when you put it in a bottle it was a light brown colour just like u see on youtube, so i put some of that liquid in to a pot and heated it up again to see what would happen and got a golden liquid, but what was left in the pot was a black liquid just like oil that ship run on, here are some pic and a little vid any comments on this,

this is what i got after 10mins
https://picasaweb.google.com/1090522...31586/03042013

this is what i got when turn up the heat
https://picasaweb.google.com/1090522...1586/030420132

this is what was left in the pot when i reheated it again
https://picasaweb.google.com/1090522...LHKxJSc-oyv6AE

this is what i got out of the reheated oil
https://picasaweb.google.com/1090522...CJuPntqU-KnkMg

here is a vid
wmo waste motor oil - YouTube

[Beyond Biodiesel]

palmtrees, it sounds like you were getting boil-over, which is common in petroleum distillation. It takes quite some art to avoid boil-over.

I have found the heavier the fraction the darker it is, and re-distilling it is not likely to remove the darkness, because the heavier fractions are just dark, although it is worth trying.

[palmtrees]

wmo

palmtrees, it sounds like you were getting boil-over, which is common in petroleum distillation. It takes quite some art to avoid boil-over.

I have found the heavier the fraction the darker it is, and re-distilling it is not likely to remove the darkness, because the heavier fractions are just dark, although it is worth trying.

have you see this what do you think,

Waste engine Oil and Used tires recycling. - YouTube

[Excalibur]

some pic and a little vid any comments on this

I'm suggesting boil-over as well. Possibly what happened is that the wmo is a mix of engine oil, say kero and petrol etc for example. When heating starts the lightest fraction wants to boil off first so the retort must be held at this temperature so the blend can evaporate that light fraction. Then once that has all boiled off, then raise to the next fractions' boil point and proceed to evaporate that component. It's not a thing to rush, in fact simmer would be a better term to describe the way to evaporate each fraction. Boiling with too much intensity is likened to boiling over milk on the stove. It's such a pity we can't easily see the process. We'd learn such a lot! Hopefully someone will put up a video of it using lab type pyrex. Anyone??
My 2c worth... hope it helps.

[waterboost]

Bubble Wrap

Anyone else tried bubble wrap without popping it first?



Definately noisy feedstock!

Has anyone got far with an auger type unit yet?

Either auger fed, or an auger through the whole reactor?

[Beyond Biodiesel]

have you see this what do you think,

Waste engine Oil and Used tires recycling. - YouTube

Thanks for the link, but it looks like a $150,000 EU hoax, because all of the images of output that I have seen gets darker as the fraction gets heavier, but my light fractions start out clear and move through yellow, to dark amber, which not much different than the Iranian "scientist."

waterboost, I have a bunch of bubble pack sitting around here waiting for a run, but I had planned on making a stuffer with spikes on it to pop the bubbles so that I can force more of the bubble pack into my retort.

[waterboost]

Auto Machine

We have been really busy fungeneering this little dinosaur... see picture...

its a torturous wait for PID controls and THE BIG RED BUTTON

[Excalibur]

WB, nice work! There's a good few hours gone into your build. Hope it goes well.

[Tplane37]

We have been really busy fungeneering this little dinosaur... see picture...

its a torturous wait for PID controls and THE BIG RED BUTTON

Sure looks pretty! At least until the heat burns off the paint off. Anxious to see how well the set up works.

[waterboost]

Hot Stuff!

The machine outer tube is stainless steel... and still needs wrapping in insulation.... The Gas Bottles are stripped back to bare metal and painted with 750 degree C Rustoleum...

If the heat burns the paint off I'll be concerned enough to run and abandon it!

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Very nice, waterboost.