How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[sonny]

Great info thanks all. Does anybody use clay catalyst in liquid phase?

[imakebiodiesel]

Clay is not likely to work so well in the liquid phase. To work properly the molecules of semi cracked plastic must make their way into the crystaline structure of the clay. A gas will do this much more easily. However that is just my opinion, you should try it and see.

[Alec]

Petrol or Diesel?

Alec thats an amazing outfit, Again more questions. What catalyst are you using? The clear liquid below the golden fuel is really strange. If you can separate them weigh a quantity to determine the specific gravity ie the weight in grams of a litre. We might be able to figure out what it is from that.
Is your car a diesel or petrol engine?


I am using pottery and Lime for my catalyst. The catalyst change the color from Black to clear.

My car is a petrol engine. It runs fine (no smoke) on the fuel but it seems to ping a bit.

[imakebiodiesel]

Sounds like the fuel is too low octane. If you separate the heavier fraction from the lighter more volatile fraction you will have better petrol and some diesel/kerosene .
Do you mix the lime into the feedstock and then pass the vapours through the broken pottery in the reflux column.

[otpadnoulje]

I nor shure to understand your set up. Please, draw it. Thanks !




I am using pottery and Lime for my catalyst. The catalyst change the color from Black to clear.

My car is a petrol engine. It runs fine (no smoke) on the fuel but it seems to ping a bit.

What kind of pottery. Could you use bricks like this



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This hollow brick has a large contact area as a catalyst and is not expensive

Please, try could it work?!

[Alec]

Catalyst

Look at my picture. I am using a gas fired reactor with ash isolation. 3 openings on top. The centre one is the Reflux and the idea is that the heavy chains (the wax) fall back into the reactor. The blue drum on top with the chimney from the reactor and green heat shield is the catalyst with its own gas burner. I put any type of broken pottery, bricks, ceramic tiles ect. with lime powder inside and it work well.
I have seperate and weigh my fuel. The bottom part is 950 gram per Liter and the top part 710 gram per Liter. That make it Diesel and Petrol !!!

The 2 green pipes are my condensers with beer bottels inside and a water cooler between them. From there the remaining gas go back to the furnice. The white pipe with the fan give extra air to make the flame blue.

[otpadnoulje]

Thanks, Alec! Nice job! A lot better then before!

I have two more questions.
What is ratio petrol vs diesel?

What is ratio weight, plastic feed vs catalyst?

[Alec]

Thanks, Alec! Nice job! A lot better then before!

I have two more questions.
What is ratio petrol vs diesel?

What is ratio weight, plastic feed vs catalyst?

Hi
The Petrol ratio vary from 20 to 80%, even on the same run. I don't know why.
The catalyst ratio, I am not sure. I just fill it up.

[congnghiah4]

catalyst

Look at my picture. I am using a gas fired reactor with ash isolation. 3 openings on top. The centre one is the Reflux and the idea is that the heavy chains (the wax) fall back into the reactor. The blue drum on top with the chimney from the reactor and green heat shield is the catalyst with its own gas burner. I put any type of broken pottery, bricks, ceramic tiles ect. with lime powder inside and it work well.
I have seperate and weigh my fuel. The bottom part is 950 gram per Liter and the top part 710 gram per Liter. That make it Diesel and Petrol !!!

The 2 green pipes are my condensers with beer bottels inside and a water cooler between them. From there the remaining gas go back to the furnice. The white pipe with the fan give extra air to make the flame blue.

Hi Alec!
I have some question:
How many a liters have you got a fuel for each run the reaction?
The total volume of how much plastic for a reaction run?
I have a suggestion I made in the following diagram
ImageShack® - Online Photo and Video Hosting
Online Photo and Video Hosting[/url]
Obtained some results in the separation of my fuel is clear
I had actual volumetric efficiency reached 80% of the total raw material input
1Kg plastic conver 800ml liquid fuel
I use clay catalyst is sure how the natural gas passing total reactor through total volume of clay 10s
Thanks all

[otpadnoulje]

The catalytic cracking of polyethylene has been studied over two natural clays and their pillared analogues with a view toward assessing their suitability in a process for recycling plastic waste to fuel. Although these clays were found to be less active than US-Y zeolite around 600 K, at slightly higher process temperatures, they were able to completely decompose polyethylene. Their yields to liquid products were around 70%, compared to less than 50% over US-Y zeolite. Moreover, the liquid products obtained over the clay catalysts were heavier. Both of these facts are attributed to the milder acidity of clays, as the very strong acidity characterizing zeolites leads to overcracking. Furthermore, this milder acidity leads to significantly lower occurrence of hydrogen-transfer secondary reactions compared to US-Y zeolite, and as a consequence, predominantly alkenes were the products over the clay catalysts. An additional advantage of these catalysts is the considerably lower amount of coke formed.


copy by:
George Manos,*† Isman Y. Yusof,‡ Nikos Papayannakos,§ and Nicolas H. Gangas§
Department of Chemical Engineering, University College London

[Alec]

Hi congnghiah4

I don't know the plastic to fuel ratio because I reload on the run. (see picture)
Thanks for the drawing.
I prefer the reflux between the reactor and the catalyst. The heavy stuff must fall back into the reactor before entering the catalyst.

[congnghiah4]

catalyst

Hi Alec
nature of the catalyst is cracking the chain carbon. If you do so is like you're doing thermal cracking, yield low liquid fuel. you do so efficiency economic is not high, you will notice temperature in the catalyst was 200 C
wish you success
thanks

[white8]

I'm quickly finding that clean regrind plastic is fairly expensive in my area and am starting to lean toward raw plastic waste. Is there a contamination issue with labels and a little residual milk or orange juice from milk and orange juice jugs particularly in a continuous process system? I would think this contamination could be vented off at the lower temperatures of the beginning heating cycle of a batch system but I don't know how this could be done on a continuous system.

[Alec]

Fire

That's what happen if you open the drain plug when its hot.

[imakebiodiesel]

The contamination is not as much of a problem as it might seem. In a batch system it is actually an advantage. The small amount of water will quickly boil and displace any air in the system. Paper,dirt, oil etc will either char in which case it stays in the reactor, or gasify and be burned off with the other uncondensed gas. Traces of water may end up in the final fuel. If this does not exceed 500ppm it is not a problem.
My chemist friend supplied with some bromine solution yesterday and I tried it out. I put about 2ml of bromine solution into a test tube and added a drop of my best fuel. The brown bromine and golden fuel instantly turned perfectly clear. This indicated that my fuel contains unsaturated hydrocarbons or alkenes. Unfortunately the test does not tell us how much of the fuel is unsaturated.
The reason this test is important is that unsaturated hydrocarbons are unstable and will tend to oxidize and polymerize more quickly than saturated hydrocarbons (alkanes)