How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[David007]

transparent tower distlation crde oil

Crude Oil Distillation - YouTube

you can see all rellay process, in side of tower start abou 3: 17 min.

i build my retor abot 75 liter, iron 6 mm !

i like too too build, reflux but i not clear.... what have inside of it?
Stainless Steel potscrube= sphere????
what is diameter???
and glass sphere??
in the 1028 message us pumice stones in reflux tower + catalyst
what is the dimension of pumice stones? is all block, or small pieces?

[Col]

reduction of acids

The question for me right now, is where do I now place that scrubber, with the view that the water mix will greatly cool down oils/gasses and then stop them distilling to there respective take off point and so that hydrocarbon mix would need reheating again.

Hi Wheels

What is the advantage of putting the scrubber / zeolite filter after the reflux? Could we avoid the cooling and re-heating of the vapour stream by keeping this process at the end? You could have as many scrubbers / zeolite filters as you have types of extracted fuel. After the diesel condenser you could pump the diesel and the sodium hydroxide through atomising injectors into a mixing chamber. Both liquids are in mist form and can emulsify to allow a complete reaction. A fuel sample can be taken and tested for acidification using IMBD's simple titration test. Once the fuel is known to not be acidic the water can be separated from the fuel by heat (90C is enough to displace the bulk of the water) and gravity, then by boiling to 120C to evaporate the remaining water, or some people may prefer a centrifuge. There are also those water absorbing beads / crystals that could take out the residue of the water. Does anyone know how effective these beads / crystals or corn starch filters are at removing trace amounts of water? I expect the zeolite will work just fine mixed into the liquid in powder form, then extracted afterwards, though clay can be difficult to filter out of water, is it difficult to filter out of fuel? This is duplicated for the kerosene and naptha fractions, and the bubbler remains at the gas exit too.

With a scrubber at the end rather than in the middle we don't have to heat back up to 380C again, maybe just 120C.

Comments anyone?

Col

[wheels]

One can design reflux with scrubber

The two would have to be separate. The reflux requires Heat close to the Heat of the Main reactor Vessel. In Large scale Refineries, in the Fractionating tower Water is heated to 460degC at the Bottom, but to do that you need huge pressure, like 1000PSI.

[wheels]

Nice ideas Wheels, i see you dispose of ewaste, you are also colecting,proccesing the gold from pc waste? I am asking because i also tried that and ran into some problems with aqua regia and precipitatin it.

Some pictures of your setup would be nice!

Keep up the good work!

I will have some pics available soon.

We don't recover Gold etc ourselves, although have often thought about playing with that process just for giggles. All the PCB's are sent away where they are processed in huge Bulk. I think they get NZ 18cents/Kg for a circuit board, of which they recover Aluminium, Copper, Brass, Palladium, Silver and Gold. People have this idea that there is a lot of Gold to be had and will get rich, but the amount of precious metals in modern day electronics is so small it is not worth the effort unless you are processing huge quantities by machine.
That needs to be said about Plastic to Oil processing also. There is no great money to be made. At best, you need to be getting waste Plastic Free. Your Energy needs to be free or really cheap. You have to consider your time. If you have no work, then that is a different story, but if you did have a job, then you are better off putting more time into your work effort than trying to make fuels.
By the very simple and unbreakable laws of Physics, You can not get something for nothing. It takes energy to produce energy. In the case of Pyrolysis, the Heat energy going into melting the plastic will always be more than the energy you get back out. Even if the process was 100% effiecient, meaning the Heat energy in = the energy out, you have to factor in the cost of materials for machine and the cost if any of obtaining the plastic, the cost of transporting plastic, and any chemicals/catalysts/filter materials etc etc.
However, pyrolysis is not 100% efficient. Far from it in fact. It has an efficiency of about 20%. So if work out the amount of energy that you put into the process, add in the additional costs of products, assuming no cost for time or plastics, measure that energy in as Joules of energy, the potential energy out, locked up in Fuels/Gas, measured in Joules, will add up to about 20% of that energy input.
Then you have the risks associated with running the unrefined fuels in a vehicle. You may get away with a Vehicle running just fine for many years. But others have found that they have problems, or worse they have caused engine Damage and an expensive bill. If you ever intend to become big enough to make fuel for sale, then you need to ensure a very high level of Fuel quality and be prepared to fight in Court should someones Engine ever fail, because no matter what the real cause was, they are going to blame the first easy thing to point a finer at.
Just for instance, there are currently 9 Lawsuits against Oil Additive Companies in the USA right now.

[ndsunil]

Yes just after the Reflux would be a great place for it, but as you state, we have to reheat the Oil again. That requires more energy and slightly more complexity, but it would result in a clean Acid free Oil to then continue processing. Which could be run back through the process in a Clean Reactor Vessel. A bypass could be installed that would then allow the Cleaning tower to be switched out of the flow and you then allow the Oil to continue on the Normal path.
You have to weigh up if the extra Energy required would make it worth while.

One can design reflux with scrubber

[Beyond Biodiesel]

BeyondBeyodiesel, i am not familliar with this substance called TCE, is there any way to identify it in the feedstock, prior to using it? Also, wouldn't the copper from your condenser affect the quality of the diesel, or are you filtering it after?

TCE = Trichloroethylene

BBD, this is where things start getting very complex, but makes for some very exciting/interesting discussion...
The question for me right now, is that now I am interested in Fuels, where do I now place that scrubber, with the view that the water mix will greatly cool down oils/gasses and then stop them distilling to there respective take off point and so that hydrocarbon mix would need reheating again.
Currently I am still using the scrubber at the end stage for convenience, but will test different positions once the machine is back in operation.

I have been spending the last few days making a prototype Fractionating tower for separating the Fuels.

Especially for the small-scale DIY hydrocarbon cracker I find placing the bubbler/scrubber immediately after the retort full of problems. I believe the bubbler and/or scrubber belong after the final condenser, so that none of the condensate is contaminated with water, and therefore makes cracking and fractionating hydrocarbons much simpler for the DIY enthusiast.

[David007]

i put only hydrogen

wheels, i sorry but n4H2 , n -NO NITROGEN, n= is variable number in chimic equation (on chimia small letter non present element chimic)

i can put inside of Reactor Vessel only hydrogen, from hho generator.

anyway you can see this sample::

C10H8O4+ 4H2= C10H8+4H2O + more of 100 °C ^^^ vaporize


thanks to correct my message

[fox32]

I feel I need to clarify or at least restate a very important point.

Please realize and Remember that I am disposing of Ewaste as the primary goal.

That is the ONLY reason I have to melt PVC. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
As stated by others, the use of PET and PVC is fraught with difficulties and dangers. But most importantly, neither give up any worthwhile amounts of Liquid Hydrocarbons. Most of any Burnable product released is Gas. So unless you want Gas for heating, it simply is not worth the energy you put into melting these Plastics. Should you want the Gas, you also then have to weigh up the difficulties of dealing with the Toxic and Dangerous outputs.
In a Nutshell, neither are worth the effort.

Nice ideas Wheels, i see you dispose of ewaste, you are also colecting,proccesing the gold from pc waste? I am asking because i also tried that and ran into some problems with aqua regia and precipitatin it.

Some pictures of your setup would be nice!

Keep up the good work!

[wheels]

I feel I need to clarify or at least restate a very important point.

Please realize and Remember that I am disposing of Ewaste as the primary goal.

That is the ONLY reason I have to melt PVC. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
As stated by others, the use of PET and PVC is fraught with difficulties and dangers. But most importantly, neither give up any worthwhile amounts of Liquid Hydrocarbons. Most of any Burnable product released is Gas. So unless you want Gas for heating, it simply is not worth the energy you put into melting these Plastics. Should you want the Gas, you also then have to weigh up the difficulties of dealing with the Toxic and Dangerous outputs.
In a Nutshell, neither are worth the effort.

[wheels]

@ WHEELS ,,
You have proposed a wonderful alteration for scrubber placement just after reflux ...as you said one needs heating again .

Yes just after the Reflux would be a great place for it, but as you state, we have to reheat the Oil again. That requires more energy and slightly more complexity, but it would result in a clean Acid free Oil to then continue processing. Which could be run back through the process in a Clean Reactor Vessel. A bypass could be installed that would then allow the Cleaning tower to be switched out of the flow and you then allow the Oil to continue on the Normal path.
You have to weigh up if the extra Energy required would make it worth while.

[wheels]

hi if put inside of reactor, out pippe from hho generator, (idrogen)
Polyethylene terephthalate categoria I

(C10H8O4)n + n4H2 = nC10H8 + nH2O

i think can cooking C10H8 i think this is hidrocarbur + H2O and water vaporize
in condesser can make diesel+water rpt again the proces to separate disel from water!!!

what you think?

Hi David007. OK so if I can decipher your post correctly, you are asking if you can put the output of a hydrogen generator into your Reactor Vessel, thus flooding the Vessel with Hydrogen.
The answer to that is yes, as long as you do NOT allow any Oxygen to enter the Vessel. There is no more potent Explosive than Hydrogen and Oxygen.

The second question looks like you are thinking that PET (C10H8O4) reacting with N4H2 would give you NC10H8 + NH2O. Well N4H2 is not pure Hydrogen. In fact it is about 96.5% Nitrogen and 3.5% Hydrogen. Plus that reaction you have described means the Hydrogen is reacting with Oxygen and producing the H2O or water. It takes a very loud and a Violent Bang to make H2O like that. That is Combustion and the first problem is you need about 15% Oxygen to support combustion and Oxygen is the last thing you want in the Vessel.

However, all that aside, PET can be Pyrolysed. There is Oxygen in it's Formulae, but the Oxygen is decomposed by the Terephthalac Acid.
However it does not produce any Liquid. It decomposes to mostly Gas. You will not get any liquid Fuel from it.
Also PET which is Polyester, is a sort after commodity and can fetch a very high price. It is used to make Polyester Fibres for Carpets, Clothing, Maylar and Rope. It simply is not a Plastic that is worth spending energy on, it is better to recycle it.
I hope that is understandable to you.

[ndsunil]

@ WHEELS ,,
You have proposed a wonderful alteration for scrubber placement just after reflux ...as you said one needs heating again .

[ndsunil]

BBD, this is where things start getting very complex, but makes for some very exciting/interesting discussion.
I know I am not going to be able to do this Topic Justice in just one reply, so bare with me and please continue to pose questions and please indeed post your thoughts as I am most certainly not saying I any expert in all on this subject.

This subject is where commercial industry and us little fry take two very different paths. For a start, modern high volume Commercial Crude Oil Refining is carried out in a very different process to what we are doing. Plus they don't have to contend with many of the Acids waste Plastic produce.
Do not go thinking or believing that Commercial scale Wast Plastic processors have it all sorted either. Many do not and as an aside here, be very wary of Machines, Processes and Information coming out of China. Actually there are a couple of other countries that seem dogy too. Anyway, that's a side track. Back to topic.
Many modern Plants these days are using High Pressure Steam Distillation, using pressures of 1000PSI and extreme temperatures and Steam traveling at well over the speed of sound and the actual contact and heating and then cooling time of the hydrocarbon is measured in fractions of a second. That way they can control the fractionating and unwanted byproducts far more precisely.
Also when we are talking about neutralizing Acids with Metals, they are not using actual hard physical Metals as such, but are adding in liquid forms of Chemical variations of Metals and in just the right quantities to negate an undesired by product and no more. They sample/test, sample/test, all the way along the stream and make adjustments or add/subtract to the process to compensate.

We unfortunately can only use a sledgehammer to crack a Nut and resulting in much of the Shell being left with the Nut, so to speak. We simply don't have the ability or facilities to test the stream and we don't have the ability or in many cases the correct materials for making changes to that stream.
The real down side of us using actual Metal to reduce (notice I did not say Neutralize) Acids, is very fact that it does not neutralize. There will still be Acid to some extent passing through in the stream and now with an additional Metal Ion, with perhaps maybe some other compound which has now been created. Plus any possible reaction of the finished mix when it later combusts in the Engine.

There are other far more effective ways of negating acids and cleaning the Fractions, but the current issue for me is where in the stream you place the device.
OK, so I am suggesting a change to peoples "bubbler's" here. But before I go get into that, here firstly is some more info.
The issue of Acid is only one part of the problem. If everyone remains with using pure PE and PP, then HCL is mostly the result. But if pure guaranteed Feedstocks can not be obtained, one has to consider that undesired Plastics may be entering the System. Or it could be that some of the more "experienced" players here, that have decent well designed systems, might want to step out into a slightly wider range of plastics available.
So for me, I have to work with plastics that can produce some extremely dangerous by products. Yet the cleaning is relatively easy. There are two "Scrubbing/Filtering" processes I employ. The first, being the Scrubber. This could be a difficult one in relation to where it gets placed in a stream. At present for my situation, it is toward the end of the process. Although I am now (after finding this site) redesigning my Machine to run off Fuels, so I am going to be testing where in the stream the Scrubber is best situated.
The scrubber is a simple tower with Bubbler situated at the bottom. The Gasses enter at the bottom through the bubbler and then rise up into the tower, where a steady heavily misted stream of strong Sodium Hydroxide/water is rained down through the Tower. This neutralizes any Acids, being Hydrogen Chloride, Hydrogen Cyanide, Chlorine and any other Acid type. This has to be constantly sampled and tested to ensure the PH remains highly Alkaline.
The Sodium Hydroxide also "washes" the oil fractions that have made it that far. It is great for breaking down and filtering out dust particles that have managed to make it through. The water mix and any Oil is separated at the Bubbler and then the water mix is pumped back to the injectors in the tower.

Hydrocarbon Gasses then continue on to the next Tower which is a Molecular sieve of Zeolite, before then being flared off. Although the new model will return that Off Gas to the Reactor or some point in the chain to be used as
additional heating.
For more simple systems, just mixing Sodium Hydroxide in the bubbling water would be helpful. The only problem with bubbling is that some gasses trapped inside the bubble never make contact with the Alkline mix and just pass right on through. This can be helped slightly by breaking the bubbles into far smaller bubbles by expelling the Gasses through a fine sieve on the end of the bubble pipe to introduce the gasses in a multitude of finer bubbles.

The question for me right now, is that now I am interested in Fuels, where do I now place that scrubber, with the view that the water mix will greatly cool down oils/gasses and then stop them distilling to there respective take off point and so that hydrocarbon mix would need reheating again.
Currently I am still using the scrubber at the end stage for convenience, but will test different positions once the machine is back in operation.

I have been spending the last few days making a prototype Fractionating tower for separating the Fuels.

Wonderful idea , placing the scrubber just after cracking .. as you said one needs to give heating again to have kinetic energy

[David007]

PET +HHO generator

hi if put inside of reactor, out pippe from hho generator, (idrogen)
Polyethylene terephthalate categoria I

(C10H8O4)n + n4H2 = nC10H8 + nH2O

i think can cooking C10H8 i think this is hidrocarbur + H2O and water vaporize
in condesser can make diesel+water rpt again the proces to separate disel from water!!!

what you think?

[David007]

excalibur

thanks but my inglese non is good for detalis and for tecnique, i am from italy, for this i search to contact "piccolo chimico"

may be someone have the imail of "piccolo chimico"?????????????