How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Asad Farooqui]

feedstock .

Dear Asad,
Nice Explanations
I have plastic reprocessing setup in this we feed HDPE, LDPE and PP and heat it upto 300 deg and output is Plastic lumps which are directly sold in market and some of it is also used in Plastic molding machine for making small plastic disks for industry after crushing it (shedding).
I want to know can I use this Shredded Plastic as Raw Material.

Plastic lumps I have used a lot, they work perfect . I will prefer PP on top of HDPE/LDPE because they are the most simplest straight chained polymers very easily chopped down to liquid fuel . The viscosity of the resultant fuel is very good .

On the other side you can save all the machining cost of first converting to lumps than to shred . Shredded PP-plastic in my country is almost twice the cost of waste PP-bags cost . I feel no reason for wasting this money .
Infact I would suggest save the money on raw-material & give it to charity.

[Insearch]

Sherdded PP

Plastic lumps I have used a lot, they work perfect . I will prefer PP on top of HDPE/LDPE because they are the most simplest straight chained polymers very easily chopped down to liquid fuel . The viscosity of the resultant fuel is very good .

On the other side you can save all the machining cost of first converting to lumps than to shred . Shredded PP-plastic in my country is almost twice the cost of waste PP-bags cost . I feel no reason for wasting this money .
Infact I would suggest save the money on raw-material & give it to charity.

Dear Asad,
Thanks for the comment,
I know its double process and will add to the cost, but sherdding PP is difficult and as read in previous comment that reactor chamber was completly filled with PP but after heating reduced to just 1/4 of the volume and was not converted to diesel.
Please put some light on how you use it.
Also share the details of condensing system that you have developed.

[imakebiodiesel]

Asad, Im not sure you can load anything into your reflux tower through a half inch hole. Stainless steel scouring pads might fit in but you would need some sort of coarse grille at the bottom to stop them falling into the main reactor. Maybe best to cut the top off , fill it and reweld.
Islander, what do you mean by sludge? Is it simply some of the fuel converting to wax? If biodiesel is made using too much animal fat that can happen but the solution is simple. Fit a heated fuel filter, in Europe many cars are equipped with these, Saab, volvo, some Renault and Peugeot models. Scrap yards will often have them. Fit it and wire it to a switch on the dashboard.
Or is the sludge something else? Heat up a sample to see.
I cant understand how fuel could oxidize that quickly, it usually takes months or even years.

[otpadnoulje]

[QUOTE=imakebiodiesel;144280]Or is the sludge something else? QUOTE]

cracking process makes olefines and diolefines. olefines try to polemerise, with oxigne makes gum and tar. gum and tar is THE sludge. sludge will asap clodge filter and injectors nozzles holes. need antioxidant! stabilizer!

stabilizer, antioxidan, detergent,

[islander]

To imakebiodiesel

That I call sludge is a black thing, almost liquid. That sits at the bottom of the tank, and also a little on the walls.

It seems to be very thin particles. I think some broken molecules(free radicals right?) during cracking are not stable, they look for something else and precipitate into other molecules.

I wonder if those free radicals are probably very harful for health, as they are very active.

But some says "never put produced diesel into plastic tanks" it is very right. Because my jerrycan had been destroyed, opened by produced diesel, that way air could enter into the tank (anyway it was only half full)

To those who have idea 'no need stabilizer, just keep diesel air tight'
Its wrong. Because in your car tank, i will be in contact with the air ! And all around the year, you'll keep diesel in it !

Before, I never understand mecedes 300d owners saying "after 300 000 km, wash your tank, it's full of dirt" now I understand. Even if the company treat the diesel, some oxydation will occur after years.

[Asad Farooqui]

Diesel generating white smoke

Asad, Im not sure you can load anything into your reflux tower through a half inch hole.

Hello imakbiodiesel ;
1) For reflux rower filling Iam thinking of used-copper wire which i think so can be through the 1/2 inch whole other wise as U said I will cut it open .

2) Diesel I produced in my 100-G baby I tried in a diesel car .
It runs as good as a normal diesel should BUT it generates WHITE SMOKE & giving LOW-milage per liter..
Next, I mixed it with Normal diesel 50/50 . The white smoke vanished .

Does the white smoke is because of the kerosine range (160-225 Celsius) is not seperated YET ???
In my process Iam only separating Gasoline range .

Do comment .

[Jetijs]

Hi all.
I am in process of building a small testing unit that will enable me to easily and fast test all kinds of plastics and other waste products for making fuel. It is a small diameter (108mm) tube with one end welded shut and flange with lid on the other end. The lid and flange uses the groove metal to metal contact seal. I ordered the lid and flange to be machined at a local machine shop, but they took SO long to do that and they still haven't finished it, so I had to do it myself and seems it worked out just fine. I use a band heater that fits tightly on the reactor vessel. It is rated for 3kW of power and should heat everything up very fast. My only concern is that it might not be able to handle temperatures as high as 450 degree celsius. I bought it from ebay and the listing said it is ceramic heat band, and the ceramic ones usually go as high as 700 degrees and by the looks of it it certainly looks like a ceramic one, but this one has no ceramic insulation inside that thickness, just air, the band heater is probably mica type and I don't know what temperatures they can handle. Hope it will perform well. Will try to heat it up empty tomorrow and see if it holds







Thanks,
Jetijs

[keith20mm]

Hi all.
I am in process of building a small testing unit that will enable me to easily and fast test all kinds of plastics and other waste products for making fuel. It is a small diameter (108mm) tube with one end welded shut and flange with lid on the other end. The lid and flange uses the groove metal to metal contact seal. I ordered the lid and flange to be machined at a local machine shop, but they took SO long to do that and they still haven't finished it, so I had to do it myself and seems it worked out just fine. I use a band heater that fits tightly on the reactor vessel. It is rated for 3kW of power and should heat everything up very fast. My only concern is that it might not be able to handle temperatures as high as 450 degree celsius. I bought it from ebay and the listing said it is ceramic heat band, and the ceramic ones usually go as high as 700 degrees and by the looks of it it certainly looks like a ceramic one, but this one has no ceramic insulation inside that thickness, just air, the band heater is probably mica type and I don't know what temperatures they can handle. Hope it will perform well. Will try to heat it up empty tomorrow and see if it holds

Thanks,
Jetijs

That is oh, so sweet.

On the flange parts, how did you hold them in the lathe? or did you luck out and have a cnc mill handy?

Beautiful rig, very nice, and should work great with the feed screw, if you should to that direction.

I'm working up a reflux passage upper for my unit, and post catalyst unit, and will be posting up general pics plus .dxf for anyone desiring to make a similar unit.

Get success first, then disclose.

[IHCUBMAN]

New guy, New idea

First I want to that I am impressed with the ingenuity in this thread, I have read this post several times and I want to do this. I am currently checking out the availability and cost of plastic, and rounding up the parts for my own reactor. I want to use a furnace burner and control it in a similar fashion as Jetijs did his electric unit, and also have a burn chamber underneath for Scrap wood, Pet etc.

I had a thought to run by you. If you are melting the plastic to fill the reactor, if you had a melting pot beside the reactor would it fill the reactor automatically? (You know, a fluid seeks its own level)If this would work couldn't you run a continuous process, with scheduled shutdowns for maintanence?

Any thoughts are appreciated.

[kumaran]

Good Work Jetijs

Hi Jetijs,

As usual, your work is awesome. Your work triggers my interest back to free energy after so long left this field (hobby).

I've never done any pyrolysis experiment before so I have few questions in my mind to clarify before proceeding to built small test unit.

As you mentioned, pyrolysis on plastics able to yield close to 1 litre diesel for each kg of plastics (selected material like HDPE, PP and so on).

1. How about if we use pyrolysis for WMO (1 litre), how much diesel output (litre)?
2. Can we use pyrolysis for WVO to get diesel? If yes, how much input (litre) vs output (litre)?
3. What are other materials that we can use for getting diesel or burnable fuel using pyrolysis?

Sorry, if I'm asking too basic questions. Anybody knows please help to answer. I thank you in advance.

[imakebiodiesel]

This is a reply to a post by Islander about oxidation of the fuel. The posts on this forum come so quickly Its hard to keep up.
The sludge you describe is obviously not simply fuel turning to wax. Some part of the fuel is reacting with an available agent, most probably oxygen.
The least stable component in any hydrocarbon fuel are the alkynes (aromatics) followed by the Alkenes(naphtenes). It is one or both of these that are most likely to oxidize or polymerise.
The process of hydrogenation will convert alkynes up to alkenes and alkenes up to alkanes (parrafins). In Asads experiments with hydrated lime the excess hydrogen may have started the hydrogenated process.
This process can be further increased by the addition of a catalyst. The most likely catalyst would be Nickel Fine Powder catalyst used in the hydrogenation of vegetable oil into margarine. A very small dose could be added to the wmo/pp along with the hydrated lime.
This might reduce the unstable components in the mix which would eliminate the sludge and also reduce any health risks associated with alkynes such as benzene.

[Jetijs]

Hi,
I am happy to see you here
WMO will yield about the same volume of gasoline/diesel (depending on temperature) as the WMO volume itself. Well, a little less. I don't know about WVO, this needs to be tested. So far it has been tested that PP, PE and WMO works just fine. The things that might also work are WVO, tars, pitch, animal fats and maybe something else

Hi Jetijs,

As usual, your work is awesome. Your work triggers my interest back to free energy after so long left this field (hobby).

I've never done any pyrolysis experiment before so I have few questions in my mind to clarify before proceeding to built small test unit.

As you mentioned, pyrolysis on plastics able to yield close to 1 litre diesel for each kg of plastics (selected material like HDPE, PP and so on).

1. How about if we use pyrolysis for WMO (1 litre), how much diesel output (litre)?
2. Can we use pyrolysis for WVO to get diesel? If yes, how much input (litre) vs output (litre)?
3. What are other materials that we can use for getting diesel or burnable fuel using pyrolysis?

Sorry, if I'm asking too basic questions. Anybody knows please help to answer. I thank you in advance.

[Asad Farooqui]

Mica heater bands .

Hi all.
I use a band heater that fits tightly on the reactor vessel. It is rated for 3kW of power and should heat everything up very fast. My only concern is that it might not be able to handle temperatures as high as 450 degree celsius.
Thanks,Jetijs

hello jetijs ;
YOu have done the right thing by selecting ceramic heating bands for your new reactor . They are the best , I should say even better than the bands which I used in my system . They will easily manage the pyrolysis temperature . I was not able to use them because of the price, I had a limited butged other wise this would had been my first choice .

[Asad Farooqui]

Nickel powder

The process of hydrogenation will convert alkynes up to alkenes and alkenes up to alkanes (parrafins). In Asads experiments with hydrated lime the excess hydrogen may have started the hydrogenated process.
This process can be further increased by the addition of a catalyst. The most likely catalyst would be Nickel Fine Powder catalyst used in the hydrogenation of vegetable oil into margarine. A very small dose could be added to the wmo/pp along with the hydrated lime.

hello Imakebiodiesel ;
1) The diesel fuel with CaOH performance is as good as the normal fuel , Only the gasoline fraction Under-performs .
I checked the S.gravity as follows ;
gasoline without CaOH = 695 g
gasoline with 5% CaOH = 700 g
kerosine with 5% CaOH = 760 g
Diesel without CaOH = 780 g
Diesel with 5% CaOH = 785 g



2) You mentioned addition of Nickel fine power as catalyst .
How much dose is required ?
Normally where to find it ?

[otpadnoulje]

YOu have done the right thing by selecting ceramic heating bands for your new reactor .

The best choice from energetic position is interior heaters.