How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[aigu]

Aigu, dont block off the bubbler, if you do you have converted your reactor into a bomb. At these kind of temperatures it will take very little time to build up sufficient pressure to explode.
If all of your plastic is converting to vapour which will not condense at 20C then you are overcracking. However before you decide that that is the problem check the the temperatures in the condensers are accurate. How do you measure them?
Over cracking is usually caused by using commercial catalysts designed for more demanding tasks than we require. What catalyst are you using? Perhaps you are using too much. How much plastic are you processing and how much catalyst ? What type of plastic are you using.?

Hello "imakebiodiesel",

1. I have a safety pressure valve on the reactor as well as a pressure gauge just in case. We blocked off the bubbler for a few minutes just to see what happens. The pressure went up to 2 psi.

2. We measure the temp with thermocouples and controllers (+/- 5C)

3. No Catalyst yet; just a condenser at 220C.

4. We process 5kg of plastics.

5. Reground HDPE (bottle grade).

Your help is very much appreciated.

[Kris3033]

Condenser system

Dear friends,
I am about to take my first trial,
Still I am not sure of condenser at present I am just going with a outlet pipe enclosed in a bigger pipe and cooling water flowing from bottom to top. At the other end I will just keep an open tank. Hope it work.

If I initially get even LDO or Furnace Oil type oil will be a big achievement.
There after I will go for separate condenser tanks.
But after going through Aigu's post I am little scared.
Hope every thing goes right.
Please suggest if I have to take some extra care.
Also can reply on my mail krismahi.3033@gmail.com

Thanks

[imakebiodiesel]

It looks to me as if your catalyst vessel is acting as a very efficient refluxer, condensing and returning most of the heavier vapours back to the reactor where they get recracked over and over. Try heating the catalyst vessel to 280 or even 300 and see if that helps.
With HDPE and no catalyst the first condenser should yield lots of golden liquid that quickly sets into a soft wax.

[imakebiodiesel]

Good luck Kris330, just make sure you have some kind of pressure release valve attached to your reactor. Listen for the bubbling at the end of the line, thats always a sigh things are going well.
White 8 , by the time a plastic recycler has collected, sorted, washed, shredded and packaged waste plastic it is a valuable commodity. You need to intercept it earlier in the waste stream. Your idea about roofing shingles is an interesting one. It should be possible to crack bitumen into a usable fuel.

[aigu]

It looks to me as if your catalyst vessel is acting as a very efficient refluxer, condensing and returning most of the heavier vapours back to the reactor where they get recracked over and over. Try heating the catalyst vessel to 280 or even 300 and see if that helps.
With HDPE and no catalyst the first condenser should yield lots of golden liquid that quickly sets into a soft wax.

I will try at 300C. Are the other temps OK in your opinnion?

2. Reactor 370-400C
3. "Catalyst" (nothing inside yet) 300C
4. Condenser 150C
5. Condenser 80C
6. Condenser 20C

I suspect that my condensers are not big enough to cool down the gas therefore the gas goes through all the condensers and out the bubbler (it really bubbles a lot!). Perhaps I should modify them to have some plates in it thus leaving the gas more time to cool down?

On my first run (with two unheated condensers) I got plenty of liquid on the first condenser (still liquid after a week but denser) and about .250lt of an orange liquid (now is a bit darker but still looks good).

My last run: about a liter of brown liquid on the second condenser and a little bit of "clear" liquid on the third.

[standingoutside]

Reactor design questions

Hello everyone. I have been following this thread for quite some time and I didn't want to post anything until I was about ready to build something. I just dropped all the supplies off at a local machine shop, but I am hoping someone can review my design and offer advice.

Specifically, is the groove in the reactor lid necessary if I have proper gaskets? Graphite gaskets are supposed to be able to handle the high heats and I had success using a graphite gasket on a pressure cooker test.

Also, as you can see in the diagram I attached, I have my lid on my cracking tank offset so that I don't have to remove pipes or anything to refill the reactor. The diameter of the cracking tank is 48 cm by 1 meter tall. The lid is going to be 25 cm in diameter. Is there an issue with that design?

The cracking tank will be heated with a cloth heating jacket, everything else with band heaters. The reflux and catalyst tanks will have removable lids as well for access to the mesh baskets inside.

This forum has been very informative and I appreciate any help you can provide! Thanks!

[Kris3033]

Reactor top plate sealing

Todays great seat back.
I assembled the machine and filled water from Refluxer found slight leakage from top plate of Reactor and from the screw joint between Reactor and Refluxer now first have find solution for this. I think copper or Aluminum packing seal should work but it is available. I am also thinking to use paste used in engine packing I will work bt don't know about Temperature who much it can with stand.
please suggest any solution...

[imakebiodiesel]

I find heat resistant silicone mastic is very good for sealing threaded joints. It is good for use up to 400c. The brand I use is Evode HT50.

[Audro]

loctite 5920

this sealing product up to +350

[Audro]

Please help I just designing and have one question

What size should be reflux-catalytic chamber ? aprox.1/3 of reactor tank ? biggest?

Thanks

[imakebiodiesel]

Its very much guesswork but I think 1/4 to 1/3 would be about right. Any smaller and it may not hold enough catalyst to last long and any bigger and it may cool too much.

[fibuslitero]

Hi:
I have found this equipment from Korea:
À¯ÈÀåÄ¡
I cannot read most of the contents but both videos are very interesting; a compact industrial unit and a laboratory unit quite similar to the japanese Blest machine.I think they have improved the japanese design with condensers and a simple cooling system to make another batch asap.
I am not sure but I think that in the industrial unit they can obtain diesel and gasoline.
Maybe we can obtain some ideas.

[Preetham Reddy]

Plastic waste to Diesel

Hello All ,
I am from India , and have tried my hand at various things , herbal mosquito repellent , car air freshener , similar to the little tree of US .
Also tried to venture into bio diesel from feed stock , which did not materialize . Having read about the many inputs on the subject " plastic waste to fuel" , I am quite excited about it and in the city that I live in , disposal of plastic waste is of paramount importance , Is there anybody here that can help me out and give me a rudimentary process flow chart of the feasibility of converting all plastic waste from household use to fuel ,
Will be eternally thankful
Preetham

[saguraut]

sir,

what is condensor and can we mfg. at home.....

and if we connect 2 to 3 condensor in series then what happen....???



and after doing this we are not getting 100% fuel ( 95 % diesel and 5% gasoline )
how to heat fuel at 200degree Celcius it may catch fire.....!!!

[congnghiah4]

catalyst for plastic

Hello all
Last time I tested the catalyst of copyright france.
today, I have metakaolin composition similar to the structure of the catalytic copyright france
After I use metakaolin my community results are very encouraging. you can get the kaolin in your country trying to produce fuel from plastic. Special Imakebiodiesel architecture-is kaolin in my country, sources in the country are you have components similar to components of our country.

thanks