How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Asad Farooqui]

The dark color may be caused by very small particles of carbon, the type of fuel you get depends upon the plastics used. This carbon can be reduced by using a filter such as these Welcome To KleenOil Filtration These can easily be made using toilet rolls but waxes will clog the filter.

Dear Mbrown ;
Thanks for the tip of making filter using Toilet Rolls .

I live in Pakistan where it would be difficult to buy the filters, so it would be better to make it .

Can you describe this method a little bit ???
What I make out of it is to place the toilet roll in an OIL-filter casing & pump our fuels i.e: Gasoline.kerosine,diesel THROUGH this filter casing .

Kindly do correct me ???
Do we need Any particular micron or gramage of toiler roll-paper is required ???

[wikisi]

hello
haven't already look at your website... but I can tell you my first exeprience was trying to "distill" a waste motor oil from my diesel car, a simple pot on a stove. And I got : gasoline !!! very easy to light with a spark, burning very quick.

my question was : where does this gasoline comes from ???

and the best : the diesel wmo was used on a car using wvo only

Pot on a stove... OK so basically you did the same thing I did just on a smaller scale, yet it worked for you but not for me. Hmm... well I'm not an expert or anything, but perhaps if the pot was small enough and the stove big enough you got up to high enough temperatures to "crack" the oil.

Since you had success, mind sharing some more on your setup? Pics, videos, whatever.

[Asad Farooqui]

Partial hydrogenation -hmm
There is a text referenced a few pages back that probably addresses this,

Dear C.R Moore ;
I cannot find any text ref at the link U pasted .
Iam reading your articles with great interest .

I studied organic chemistry 25 years back & almost forgotten it .
I like with the grace of God & thanks to this forum have learned quite a bit & like to Improvise further in Waste-to-liquid=WTL.

It’ll be highly helpful for this community, if you e-mail/refer any literature or recommend any website describing the basics .

I would like to find a solution to remove the Burnt-plastic like Smell & Dark Color from our plastic derived fuels.
Anyone in this community tried IRON-SPONGE, for this purpose.
I read an article that the petro industry is using it more than 100-years for this purpose, they are what I makeout, are Simply passing the vapors through a 05-ft long-packed bed filter of iron-sponge to remove the smell/sulfur particles from the vapor stream ???

[Shadesz]

I would like to find a solution to remove the Burnt-plastic like Smell & Dark Color from our plastic derived fuels.
Anyone in this community tried IRON-SPONGE, for this purpose.
I read an article that the petro industry is using it more than 100-years for this purpose, they are what I makeout, are Simply passing the vapors through a 05-ft long-packed bed filter of iron-sponge to remove the smell/sulfur particles from the vapor stream ???

There are various ways to remove sulfur from gas. Letting it react with iron is one way. Bubbling it through an alkaline solution is another, and others include bio-processing.

[Asad Farooqui]

SULFUR/smell removal

There are various ways to remove sulfur from gas. Letting it react with iron is one way. Bubbling it through an alkaline solution is another, and others include bio-processing.

Dear Shadesz;
Thanks for a quuick reply.
Which one of the 3-process is more effective for SMELL removal ?
Can U further describe Bio-processing ?

[Shadesz]

It would be effective if the smell was stemming from hydrogen sulfide, which is common when refining organic materials... seeing as your initial plastic should have no sulfur the smell is not likely to come from said element. Thus IMO a Sulfur scrubber would not have the effect you are looking for. But I am no expert.

I am not completely familiar with the bio process other than it relies on micro organisms to utilize the sulfur. In this situation I think it would not be beneficial as they would also likely consume the fuel.

[kaguar]

Hi guys,
Jetijs thank you for starting an excellent thread: plastic to diesel. I`v been doing this for years now. Currently running my 4th generation reactor (making 15 l/h of diesel) and have plans of upgrading it next week as I`v got some new ideas on how to improve it. Actually, I stumbled accidentally upon this thread and followed it carefully from the beginning and I could`t resist temptation to drop few words here. I can say only one thing: good job BUT it is not as simple as it looks like. I see that everyone here is eager on making a conversion unit for himself and run on his own fuel but has anyone actually (of you who are making this fuel) run his vehicle on this fuel solo more than 10 000km? I have. And I had quite a lot of problems. Remember this is just simple thermal cracking and you get a lot of junk in the mixture. If the fuel is not catalytically upgraded sooner or later you will end up with blocked fuel lines, filter, pump and injectors. How I know this? It happened to me few times I`v tried many different combinations of reactor setups and feed mixtures. I`m still learning and I`m ready to share my experience with those of you who are already doing this seriously. Cheers

[owuuta]

Any thoughts on using acrylic?

It seems that many sign companies in my area have a hard time getting rid of scrap acrylic. I see that it is a group 7 plastic. Here is the link where I found that. RECYCLING ACRYLIC - CNCzone.com-The Largest Machinist Community on the net!
I'm going to try a mixture of Berber carpet and Acrilic later today or tomorrow unless someone tells me I will die. So any thoughts please pass them on.
Thanks for the help.

[Jetijs]

Acrylic is C5O2H8, that is a lot of oxgen. I would not recommend it because you will get a large percentage of water in the output and your risk an explosion in the reactor. Also your fuel will come out black and already oxidized. So do it on your own risk!

[owuuta]

Acrylic is C5O2H8, that is a lot of oxgen. I would not recommend it because you will get a large percentage of water in the output and your risk an explosion in the reactor. Also your fuel will come out black and already oxidized. So do it on your own risk!

Thank you Jetijs. Not only are you a mastermind, but now you're a life saver. Kinda puts you in the super hero catagory.
My batch will be pure Berber.

[Asad Farooqui]

waste Acrylic recycling .

It seems that many sign companies in my area have a hard time getting rid of scrap acrylic.
I'm going to try a mixture of Berber carpet and Acrilic

Hello Owuuta ;
Acrylic I have processed a lot 10 years back.
waste Acrylic can be cracked but what you will get will be 97-98% pure Acrylic monomer & if you bother to repeat the process again you will get water white 99% pure Acrylic monomer .

If you are looking to make your fuel just stick to waste PP,PE or WMO .
Note:
If you Don't know how to swim, than never ever DIVE in the SEA, U won't be able to see the surface again . Just follow the experts ...

[Asad Farooqui]

Hi guys,
I see that everyone here is eager on making a conversion unit for himself and run on his own fuel but has anyone actually (of you who are making this fuel) run his vehicle on this fuel solo more than 10 000km?
If the fuel is not catalytically upgraded sooner or later you will end up with blocked fuel lines, filter, pump and injectors.
I`v tried many different combinations of reactor setups and feed mixtures.

Hello Kaguar ;
There are many people I know used this fuel for more than 10,000 km without using any catalyst . Iam sure Grand Pa Jetijs is also not using any catalyst .

I read in a research article of DR-Walter Kaminsky from University Hamburg Germany, who is one of the pioneer of this process back in Seventees & his students under his seupervision even now are making a lot of catalysts for this purpose he says . "catalyst generally alters the fuel percentage yield, if you need more gasoline & less Diesel, catalyst is the answer ".

What U might be adding in your fuel are the additives;
like Anti-oxidants,Sulfur removers , fuel stabilisers etc .

[kaguar]

Owuuta,
by cracking PMMA you get its monomer MMA (methyl methacrylate) which is clear highly flammable liquid usually used in some additives as octane booster. I`m not sure what would happen if you used it as a fuel. Small amount of PMMA in your waste feed could be beneficial but the rest should be PP, PE and WMO. PS must be avoided at any cost! Cheers

[kaguar]

Hi Asad,
Kaminsky was and is my main referenci in my work, of course. Catalysts give you selectivity over the final products but more importantly they give you saturated hydro-carbons.
Immediately after the condenser my fuel is pale yellowish-green and completely transparent. After only few hours it turns foggy (repolymerization), after few days it is getting reddish (oxidation) and after two weeks it is completely black. It was always the case after making many thousands of liters. I was usually adding injector cleaner additive to my fuel but never helped. I use my fuel on three cars and quite a lot of other machinery and after 500 liters vehicle starts to loose power. After that I have to drain the tank, change fuel filter, run 1000km on normal diesel with a lot of injector cleaner in it. It usually works, but often I have to clean injectors as well. Very tedious job.
I`m about to modify my reactor and start to experiment with some additives of my own as I don`t have access to any antioxidant or diesel stabilizer over here.
Any input?
Cheers

[imakebiodiesel]

Kaguar, what you say makes complete sense, simple breaking up of hydrocarbons into smaller units must produce unstable, unsaturated compounds, which will degrade over time. A source of extra hydrogen and a catalyst to speed up the saturation process is what is needed. Has anyone tried palladium? You can salvage it from the catalytic converter in any scrap car. It would be fouled by the carbon deposits very quickly but could be regenerated between batches with a simple heat gun.