How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Jetijs]

About ABS plastics, I don't know if it can be used as it has nitrogen in it along hydrocarbons, but only very little of it. It could probably give off ammonia in the escaped gasses and ammonia does not burn at such low temperatures as propane and butane burns, so it most probably will just go in the air, but it is toxic in large doses, so additional care should be taken. It might just as well create something else nitrogen related, maybe hydrazine or something like that. I don't know.

[r&dsolutions]

Jet,
Thanks for the heads-up about ABS plastics. May try later and see what I get out. Problem is I have very little equipment to do any qualitative analysis so all has to be about brain power and thinking outside of the box. Here in UK I asked about buying shredded polypropylene plastic and could not believe it when they are quoting around £400 per tonne! The big boys seem to be taking note of what you are doing and as usual are using corporate power to try to prevent our success in bringing the ability to produce cheap re-usable energy to the masses. I may have to pursue the waste motor oil primary source as I can get tons of the stuff here. Still trying to come up with a way to regulate heat from a Babington burner to keep reactor at 350-400C without having to sit there for 4 hours adjusting flame. On a technical issue what is the temperature to keep the first condenser at to allow the heavier fractions to distill to a liquid and still allow the petrol/gasoline fraction to remain a gas and continue on to the second condensor?

Keep on pushing the boundaries!

Russ

[wrtner]

Here in UK I asked about buying shredded polypropylene plastic and could not believe it when they are quoting around £400 per tonne...

Have you tries your local authority's recycling department?
Many are desparate toget rid of plastic that they do not
know how to recycle usefully.

[Redkrabby]

Hi to all,

This is what I am doing. It is in principal the same as with the plastic, but I am using waste motor oil.

No temperature control, insulation or any safety devices! Do not inhale the fumes if you want to try this!


YouTube - Home made diesel from WMO part2

regards,

Redkrabby

[r&dsolutions]

Thanks wrtner. Will approach my local council and see what they have to say. Will report back when i have an answer.
Redkrabby, like the set-up for the waste motor oil. Have you tried the fuel in any later type diesels such as common rails or VW PD unit injector type engines? Just wondering if anyone has done any long term testing for wear/durability etc. Dont want to wreck any of my friends £30,000 Mercs or BMWs!

Cheers,

Russ

[trebel]

Quote:
Originally Posted by r&dsolutions View Post
Here in UK I asked about buying shredded polypropylene plastic and could not believe it when they are quoting around £400 per tonne...
Have you tries your local authority's recycling department?
Many are desparate toget rid of plastic that they do not
know how to recycle usefully.
It's the same problem here in belgium.
It's even forbiden to recycle stuf yourself on your homeground.
I dit somme testing with eps isomo,disolve in aceton is fast but 3€ for 1 liter.
So I dit a test with 200° hot cookingoil(wvo)and it disolv fast like aceton.
I will do some more testing with old plastic flowerpots nobody wants.
cheers.
trebel.

[markgwoodruff]

One tiny (enormous) problem: dioxin

Before anyone tries this at home, and gives themselves and their neighbors cancer, birth defects, and health problems for decades to come, look seriously at the issue of dioxin production. Dioxin is dangerous down to the picogram level, and the temperatures for transforming plastic to oil are exactly the temperatures for creating dioxin. This is the reason none of us have seen plants in the US or Europe, and the same reason almost all incinerator plants have been shut down. It's a very difficult problem to solve, and only in the past few years have any viable solutions arisen.

The problem is chlorine. While we can greatly reduce the problem by not including any PVC in the feedstock, some chlorine will slip in anyway, whether from atmospheric contamination, bleached paper, the ink on the plastic containers, bits of food, glue, etc. At 300-850 degrees C, that chlorine will prefer to combine with the hydrocarbons to form dioxin (eg TCDD) because it is more stable than other compounds. Even biomass gasification has the problem (google "biomass dioxin gasification").

There are two potential ways to deal we could deal with the problem (google "ANL-CMT-03/4"):

1. Superheat the exhaust gasses above 850 degrees C in an oxygen rich atmosphere and immediately quench the results in a NaOH/CaCO3 solution (google "BIC SYSTEMS").

2. Pass the exhaust through a nano-TiO2 catalyst in the presence of strong UV (either from sunlight or a UV-C lamp). (Photocatalytic Degradation of Polychlorinated Dibenzo-p-dioxins on TiO2 Film under UV or Solar Light Irradiation - Environmental Science & Technology (ACS Publications)) There's one company I found so far that sells paint containing the nano particles, Hygienic Coatings - Nano TiO2 Photocatalyst Coating Technology, but I haven't priced it yet. There are other catalyst combinations that might work better (adding cesium or vanadium) but I haven't seen any actual products containing them, only research papers.

I don't know how large a surface area we'd need to for an effective catalytic converter. Tens, if not hundreds of meters, I'd imagine. Still, it's doable.

Ignoring the problem won't make it go away, although there are an awful lot of companies out there doing just that (Alphakat, Plastic2oil, GEK, and the list goes on and on). I don't think most of them are trying to sell their product, just hyping their stock to sucker some people in. The companies actually selling products are doing it in countries that don't monitor the exhaust. You can get away with it most places in the world, but it's not something you want to build in your backyard.

I don't buy into the "magic catalyst" either (MnO2?). I can believe there's a catalyst that would speed up the cracking, but if there's chlorine in the mixture, there will be dioxin in the output.

Not sure about the oil that comes out. That would have to be tested too.

I'm looking to do this using solar power (from a Fresnel lens). I started working on a prototype similar to Green Power Sciences video on YouTube, except using glycerine as a solution rather than water (boils at 290 degrees C). The dioxin problem has stumped me so far.

Mark

[Grochas]

Maybe I am not right, but how I know, if we not use PVC and not reach more then 500 C, and of course burn outgoing gases it can not be a problem.....

[ianenergy]

Hi Jetijs,
Can you show us the coil details that is heating the chamber? the same principle with the japanese invention..(microvave heating)

[Jeremyv1980]

Agitator

Cool stuff jetijs. I read thru all the threads and happened upon a mention of a hopper for continuous feed. I think if the hopper was sealed from above and the feed tube emptied to the bottom of the reaction chamber you could introduce as much material as you want to the reactor and just keep the process going without babysitting it all day. May e use a smaller reactor and element as well?

Another thing to consider is possibly agitating the plastic melt with a magnetic stir bar like on the chemistry hot plates? Maybe a more homogenous mixture and possibly speed up the process. I will be building one as soon as I get back home and will let you know how my design works out. Maybe a 1 kw cooker with the agitator and increased hopper. I'm drawing it on a napkin right now. Keep up the good work.

[Jeremyv1980]

Hopper

I couldn't sleep last night and considered that possibly the hopper would not have to be sealed actually. If the hopper fed down a pipe and had a "water trap" like under a sink when the plastic began to melt it would self seal in the snake. This would simplify feeding the reactor since it is a low pressure system. Also the waste gas line could be pulled into a vacuum then the system turned on. There would be a "t" at the end of the waste gas line with 1 leg on the vacuum and 1 leg that would then go to another "t" with a diverted valve hooked to the thermostat in the reactor that would assist in the thermal heating of the reactor and end one would burn excess waste when the diverse valve is vented to the atmosphere. Both of the ending tubes will be controlled with a check valve.

Prior to system start up the vacuum is turned on which sucks the check valves closed. Now the heating coils are powered up and when the system produces gas there will be a reduction in vacuum sensed in the system which would turn of the vacuum and begin to ignite an electronic ignition system at both the waste point and the reactor heat point. Both of these points would have a thermocouple to sense when the flame is sustaining and turn of the electronic ignition. Yes it adds a few more bucks to the system but it also makes it more efficient and a more continuous operation. These are just my thoughts and when I get back home on the 15th I will get to work on it and let you know if it worked or not and if I don't right back that means things went horribly wrong and I am to embarrassed to admit my mistake or it went kaboom and I no longer have to worry about energy.

Prior to the system

[Jeremyv1980]

Simple Schematic

Here is a simple schematic of my thoughts. It may work and it may not, I will not know for another couple weeks.


I couldn't get the picture turned so just cock your head

Also where the X intersection is there should have been a bubbler before that and at the intersection there should be a diverter valve to control temperature. This system starts with electric heating coils and hopefully becomes self sustaining from the off gasses.

Also I am thinking of using cyclone separators, just wondering if anyone has used these for this and if they work?

[dutchdivco]

Dioxin production

Very concerned about the info in post 172, regarding dioxin production.Would like to know more about this. Specifically, as I think Grouchas was asking in 173, if I simply burn the end product flamable gas (propane/butane type stuff) will that eliminate this dioxin, or simple put it into the aptnosphere (don't want that!!) Would it address this if i 'bubbled' the exhaust from such a burning through something, to capture the dioxin.If so, then what do I do with it?Don't want to become "Part of the problem", in my attempt to be part of the solution!!Jim

[wrtner]

Before anyone tries this at home, and gives themselves and their neighbors cancer, birth defects, and health problems for decades to come, look seriously at the issue of dioxin production...

Have you got any links about this effect? Who has done work on it?

[avro539]

Dixon remarks

Hi .. Where is markgwooruf...post 172..came in on a 1st post.... scares the living be#@$& of every one and doesn't follow up with his assumptions about Dioxins escaping into the atmosphere...if you are out there come in with some scientific proof and set our minds at rest...could be a sitin from the petro company's scarring us ...They certainly need to clean up their act when it comes to Dioxins polluting the planet.....avro539