How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Jetijs]

keith20mm, I must say that it is a great work you have done once again, but I must caution you. Our device that was made like this worked fine for a long time, but at the end, those coils came loose and out from the grooves as they expand and contract all the time and move accordingly. Eventually they touched the frame and burned out. I would advise you to monitor carefully the condition of your coils and find a way to fix them in place as good as you can so that they don't come loose, go out of the grooves, short out on the frame or burn out.
Thanks,
Jetijs

[HOPE_FOR_HUMANITY]

I received information, that red mud is one of the best catalyst for WMO and waste plastic, But I have not tried yet!

[Jetijs]

Red mud sounds like red clay - iron oxide. So far in my experiments I have not seen any difference between red and blue clay. Of course I experimented on PE only

[keith20mm]

I asked the shop near by ... They say ..

Aluminum oxide is available in powder form ...

How can I get those bricks ???

I located bricks at a local ceramics supply house.

They come 25 per carton, 9" long, 4-1/2" wide, and 2-1/2" thick.

They are called Insulating Fire Brick FB-2300

The ones I obtained from the ceramics/kiln supplier are made by: IFB, Inc. - Insulating Firebrick, Inc.
Insulating Firebrick, Inc. Butler, PA

FB-2300, Firebrick 2300

The technical data is: IFB, Inc. - Insulating Firebrick, Inc. - Contact Us

I built a little jig to hold them for sawing:



I sawed them using a tungsten carbide hacksaw blade, simply held in my hand.

I sawed slots for the elements, using another jig. They look like this with the slots:

http://www.penguinscouts.com/PTOFT/IMG_0002Ar.JPG

Each of the three brick layers looks like this:



This is a side view drawing of my general arrangement.

http://www.penguinscouts.com/PTOFT/Sideview.jpg

I cut holes through the drum for the electrical connectors to pass through.

The element ends pass through ceramic insulators:

http://www.penguinscouts.com/PTOF/IMG_0018r.JPG

I used high temperature "fish paper" to insulate the wire connectors from the drum.

Here's my controller box:

Operating:



Inside:

Power:

http://www.penguinscouts.com/PTOF/IMG_0003r.JPG

PID controllers:

http://www.penguinscouts.com/PTOF/IMG_0006r.JPG

Solid state relays:

http://www.penguinscouts.com/PTOF/IMG_0005r.JPG

The unused relay and PID will be used for either a reflux cell or a catalytic cell.

I plan on adding three more PID controllers for temperature control on three condensers, placed in series.

These condensers will be old propane tanks. The inlet will go down near the bottom of the tank. At about 3/4 of the way up, I'll have a horizontal take off. Water will be used up to about 1/2" below the horizontal take off point.

Each of these tanks will have a band heater at the lower section, to maintain water temperature at desired bypass point. The outlet from the tank will just be a top pipe to the next condenser.

Each condenser will be well-insulated, using rock wool 2" thick, and foil. The interconnecting pipes will also be insulated.

Each tank will have a bottom dump drain valve.

Between the main retort and the first condenser, I'll leave a pipe section having a union on each end. This pipe can be replaced at some time when I try various catalysts.

ZSM-5, by the way, I was quoted $0.50 per GRAM, minimum 30kg sack.

Uh, $15,000??????? ouch. Maybe we should make up a group purchase.

[keith20mm]

General arrangement

In thinking this design through, given more time, I would have done these changes:

I definitely would add a stirrer to the tank top lid, right in the center.

This moves the main retort take off over to the side, no big deal.

The stirrer would be a 30 to 60 rpm gearmotor, with a clutch or overload shutoff. The stirrer would extend nearly to the bottom of the retort.

I would also add some kind of dump valve in the bottom center for char (coke) removal.

This valve probably would have to be heated to keep it from locking up with solidified plastic.

I would (and probably will) add a pressure relief valve in the lid, especially after Jetijs' plug up experiment.

I would also place a hole in the lid to allow a screw feeder injector, for feeding premelt into the retort.

As it is now, I'll have to pull the retort out of the furnace to dump char. This means removing the lid, and anything above that, and hoisting the tank out of the cage, then have to make some rig to allow the tank to be easily tipped into a char dump box.

[keith20mm]

Along the line of a stirred tank

My studies show that a stirred tank is a much better setup than a tank with no stirrer.

Additional charring is due to higher heat at the outer regions of the melt, near tank sides.

Stirring evens out the temperature of the melt, leading to less burning/charring.

Something that came to mind was the old-time ice cream making machines that have the stir paddle inside the tank.

The problem with these old units is that the tank rotates, while the motor remains stationary on the outer bucket bridge support. The paddle doesn't rotate. Instead, the ice cream bucket rotates around the paddle.

So, maybe a setup could be built where an outer support structure, carrying heaters, could be arranged around the ice cream drum (the ice bucket, in this setup is plastic or wood, obviously would not work for temperatures). The motor support bridge would also have to be made of metal, and there would be hassles with vapor take-off.

[keith20mm]

keith20mm, I must say that it is a great work you have done once again, but I must caution you. Our device that was made like this worked fine for a long time, but at the end, those coils came loose and out from the grooves as they expand and contract all the time and move accordingly. Eventually they touched the frame and burned out. I would advise you to monitor carefully the condition of your coils and find a way to fix them in place as good as you can so that they don't come loose, go out of the grooves, short out on the frame or burn out.
Thanks,
Jetijs

I thank you for your consideration on this aspect.

I have taken the time to make staples all around the coils, using stainless steel wire, about 1-1/2" long, bent into U-shape. These are pinning the coils into the bricks.

Nevertheless, I will constantly monitor the coils to see that they are in their grooves, and not shorting to the cage.

I have, also, connected all parts of the barrel, cage, control boxes, tank, to a common ground point with a solid #10 copper wire.

But, yes, this is a serious concern!!

In my general arrangement, I also laid out the coils to be spaced away from the cage hoops. The verticals are inside the hoops, and another 1/4" away from the elements.

ALWAYS FRAME GROUND POWER EQUIPMENT!

[keith20mm]

Now we could try to use a car exhaust catalyst ! It's made for gasses and ready to connect and use.

BulletProof EGR Coolers

You might could use something like this as a heat exchanger for a plastic pre-melt, using maybe a generator exhaust.

Maybe take boiled vapor right up to your generator's intake and switch over to gas run from liquid startup.

[keith20mm]

I agree with your concern. If the process is not under vacuum, we should find a easily to obtain gaz to fill the system before operation to avoid this risk.

fill with a gaz and push the air out.

-water steam ? fine but the device has to be at steam temp otherwise it will condensate very quick, and has the side effect of introducing water in the system

-butane cooking gaz ? fine but better to use uncombustible gaz : would be safer

-co2 : hard to get a can of it
-argon : expensive
-azote : expensive
-refrigeration gaz : expensive and dissolve bad things into oil


-any other idea ?

Nitrogen gas is very inexpensive. It is also used in a number of commercial conversion systems. Rather than vacuum the system at the start, it is flooded with N2 gas.

In many catalytic systems, the catalyst is stripped of coke using steam. In some systems, the catalyst is flurry-moved into another tank, where hot air is blown up through the catalyst, burning the carbon into carbon monoxide or carbon dioxide.

A search/study on Fluid Catalytic Cracker (or Conversion) (FCC) will give you much information on various ways the catalysts are handled for continuous runs, or how they are treated so that their activity is regenerated.

The name Fluid is due to the consistency of the catalyst mixed with the feedstock. It is a slurry.

[islander]

to keith20mm

Congratulations ! you started interesting job really !

about electric resistance going out the grooves like jetijs said have a problem, my father told me usually when you do this ovens your groove has to have a shape going down, quite deep, more than yours, so the wire is well kept inside; maybe you need a special tool and something like a router to machine it ?

nitrogen (azote) or N2 is expensive here. I can only get it as a high pressure bottle, 10M3 for 80 euros....

or have to find a way to remove oxygen from air. burn something into a volume of air ? only char could be kept burning at low oxygen, but will generate CO right ? Co is explosive.

steam : it's not easy to handle. to work well, the system has to be heated totally over 100°C, otherwise the steam will condense/provoke vacuum and suck outside air. But I know professionnally it's best to use. once you are able to deal with steam separation in the condensation frationnator tower.

but they use very high towers, not like us. separation of the elements are maybe easier.

[Francisco Mora]

EGR Coolers bullets

EGR Coolers bullets

It is an excellent idea, my system has a heat exchanger 2 meters long by 30 cm wide, with 20 tubes of 1 / 2 inch thick stainless steel, this is cooled with water, gas condenser tube earlier eras copper and these give a dark color to diesel in the forum I was advised to use tubes of iron or steel and there is no problem, it gets as an excellent condensation of gases. soon publishes photos of my system.

[keith20mm]

Congratulations ! you started interesting job really !

about electric resistance going out the grooves like jetijs said have a problem, my father told me usually when you do this ovens your groove has to have a shape going down, quite deep, more than yours, so the wire is well kept inside; maybe you need a special tool and something like a router to machine it ?

nitrogen (azote) or N2 is expensive here. I can only get it as a high pressure bottle, 10M3 for 80 euros....

or have to find a way to remove oxygen from air. burn something into a volume of air ? only char could be kept burning at low oxygen, but will generate CO right ?.

You could take a lawn mower engine and route the exhaust into your retort tank.

Let the engine run maybe 15 minutes, then close the lid.

Most of the oxygen would be bound to carbon, as either CO2 with some CO.

This is the same trick to use to welding on old propane tanks... even after washing out a propane tank with soap and water several times, could still be explosive, so filling it with engine exhaust purges most available oxygen from the tank before welding.

[islander]

about alcaline stabilizer : do someone have use such ?

about the Chinese DHB08 stabilizer, did someone already use that kind of stuff ? it seems it's not an additive, it's a wash to capture the instable molecules, free radicals. it is very alcaline. a reaction happens, maybe the whole bath become hot, as they wrote "reaction 50°C" and then have a deposit (to be removed by settling, as our centrifuge are made in aliminium and alcaline is agressive for it)

so the real business is

1)crack correctly the vapours using heat+ the right catalyst (at this time avoid copper and tin contact, not to promote bad sludge)

2)for safety and stability of the product, treat it with alcaline stabilizer that bonds with bad free radicals and wash the product

Any remark ?

[fibuslitero]

This one seems to be more or less similar to DHB08:

JH2066 Catalytic Diesel Oil Refining & Stabilizing - JH2066 Catalytic Diesel Oil Refining & Stabilizing wholesale from China JH2066 Catalytic Diesel Oil Refining & Stabilizing suppliers on item 35657386 details

about the Chinese DHB08 stabilizer, did someone already use that kind of stuff ? it seems it's not an additive, it's a wash to capture the instable molecules, free radicals. it is very alcaline. a reaction happens, maybe the whole bath become hot, as they wrote "reaction 50°C" and then have a deposit (to be removed by settling, as our centrifuge are made in aliminium and alcaline is agressive for it)

so the real business is

1)crack correctly the vapours using heat+ the right catalyst (at this time avoid copper and tin contact, not to promote bad sludge)

2)for safety and stability of the product, treat it with alcaline stabilizer that bonds with bad free radicals and wash the product

Any remark ?

[keith20mm]

Condenser design, bubbler type

In thinking over a water bubbler type condenser, it would appear to me that a taller, narrower tube or pipe would make a better condenser than a short fat tank, provided that the water temperate in the tube were rather constant throughout the tube, and that the gas comes into the tube as low as possible, but not so low as to create a stopping back pressure on the incoming gas.

The taller tube would allow more time for the gas bubbles to reach the water bath condensing temperature.

Also, it seems that a screen over the tube end, or a screen pouch, over the tube end, would be better than a plain open tube, as smaller bubbles would be formed, and these would then be more effectively brought to the water temperature (condensation temperature.)

I would certainly be interested in your thoughts, even more so, if my thinking is incorrect.