How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Asad Farooqui]

Elec heaters

Hello Asad, it is great to see you too
small 40Liter unit, I have the heaters for that unit already laying around and waiting. I will talk to my chemist friend about the sulfur and smell issue and let you know
Thanks,
Jetijs

Hello ;
Thanks for your reply .
1) I would like to share my new experience with you regarding heating bands.
No matter which ever heating band I tried they all die very soon . Some only last one batch . Same is your experience I guess ?
WHY ??? What is the reason, anybody know's ???

Than I found a solution .......


2) Another experiment I conducted .
Instead of heater bands WRAPPED on the wall of the reactor .
I took Electric-ROD type three phase heaters & placed them in a TUBE .
This tube is inserted in the CENTER of the reactor right till the bottom .

The result is that the Reactor took half the time to heatUp to 450 celcius.
Can Anyone guess WHY ???

But these heaters also die after some time . I found out there is one thing missing in the electrical-circuit .

I would like to have suggestions from the community ???

I will reveal the answer after I receive all the suggestions .
It's a quiz......

[Jetijs]

Hi Asad,
don't keep the candle under the bed, say it out
I am under impression so far that the reason for the band heater to fail is that their surface or sheath temperature is maintained higher than it should be. The thermostat in the lid only turns off the heater as it sees the needed temperature, but the heater sheath temperature is already much higher and this damages the heater over time. To solve this you should use two thermostats, one on the heater itself that shuts it off if maximum sheath temperature is reached, and another thermostat is used the usual way - to maintain the reaction temperature in the reactor itself. Am I right?
Thanks,
Jetijs
BTW, paninfosys, I am not married, that is just a prank Asad is pulling on me

[Kris3033]

Hello Imakebiodiesel
Can U try & test the mixture of=( WVO-biodiesel + Plastic-derived diesel).

Kris ;
I guess your heating system is not so good/efficient. 8-hours of heating should have taken the temperature upto 450 celcius easily .
U should double your heaters & without insulation you'll never be able to reach 450.Remember to insulate the top-lid also .

Try to use one type of waste plastic to startwith .later you should experiment with different mixtures .


I just completed fabricating a Condensor having 17-ft long U-shaped-tubes in it. I will try to get the pics for you guys .


Regards

ASAD FAROOQUI

Thanks Asad,
your replys are really good as you suggested. I did the same and finally loaded the Plastic what I had and result was really inspiring.
but unfortunitly I could not continue as I have to move to different location for Job so now I am away from my baby but soon I will restart it.
Now I am insearch of rotating seal so that reactor can be rotated or atleast material can be stirrered inside the reactor. I think this will make reaction more homogenous and can improve the yeild.
Secondly I am searching for some design to make it continious feeding or atleast some easy way to feed the material.

[extraloud]

to asad (heaters)

asad you have done good work - with your experiment !

i have had bad experience with all electric heaters of them burning out - this is why i am concentrating on using natural gas for now. i think they are breaking is because they need to be constantly dumping heat to a sink - otherwise they will over heat and break. they coils have a max temp they can reach. also heating and cooling over time will shock the coils and they become brittle.

I have has better success with cartridge heaters not breaking all the time Cartridge Heaters: *

asad - i think this is what you have used ?

heating from the inside is by far the best efficiency and rate.
- heating on outside you has loss to the world. and you have limited surface contact of the vessel wall.
- if heating from the inside you can tightly insulate the vessel
- it would be ideal to stir as well - and not for internal heating to get in the way of the stirrer

I think this is the best idea - some hot water heaters use U-tubes to heat from the inside - these are lower temperatures.

i have found electric heaters as well that go to higher temperatures.
Immersion Heaters: Screw Plug Immersion Heaters

I have looked up "tube fired burners" these use natural gas to fire through a tube - there are some that are regenerative as well - that recirculate the hot air.

here is info on types of these
http://www.flox.com/documents/07_AFRC.pdf

Process Burner Products

[fibuslitero]

Hi to all:
I have found this video with a setup for oil from tires:
Oil from tires - YouTube
Interesting way to us a 55 gallon drum as a furnace imho...

[paninfosys]

algae oil

hey all ENERGETIC guys,

i was just exploring.. n exploring.. net.. all for ALGAE to ALGAEOIL to BIO DIESEL.
is this project clear on RND side ?
are comapnies manufacturing bio diesel alraedy ?

just wondering, what could be the price of algae oil ? jetijs, u know my funda, i was just pondering upon .. production of algae oil.. can it sustain commercially ?

thanks,
ash.

[Asad Farooqui]

Tube heaters

Hi Asad,
don't keep the candle under the bed, say it out
I am under impression so far that the reason for the band heater to fail is that their surface or sheath temperature is maintained higher than it should be. The thermostat in the lid only turns off the heater as it sees the needed temperature, but the heater sheath temperature is already much higher and this damages the heater over time. To solve this you should use two thermostats, one on the heater itself that shuts it off if maximum sheath temperature is reached, and another thermostat is used the usual way - to maintain the reaction temperature in the reactor itself. Am I right?
Thanks,
Jetijs
BTW, paninfosys, I am not married, that is just a prank Asad is pulling on me

Hello Jetijs ;
Nice to hear from U again & again .
Well I think quizzes will encourage everyone to ponder a bit & help to build a healthy debate .
I will definitely share my experience with the forum community .

Heating with Band heaters :
They have to heat the walls of the reactor first which takes a lot of time specially when larger reactor's having capacity of 100-gallon plus, the wall thickness almost doubles .
When I placed a heater in the center of the reactor from top2bottom in a metal tube. The heat generated is absorbed by the material in EVER-direction .
Note, in band-heaters the bands can only transfer heat in ONE-direction (i.e: to the walls of the reactor) . The other direction is where the glass-wool absorbs all the heat .
secondly heat has to travel from the walls of the reactor to the plastic material which is a very bad conductors & puts-up resistance to heat to pass-through.

Placing heating system in the center of the reactor convects the heat quickly & equally to the feedstock , no need to heat the walls first .

That's why All the boiler's I have seen has a heating system placed inside the furnace.

I hope my conclusion is in the right direction .


In my country at the momment there is acute elec-power shortage .
So Iam forced to look for a gas-heating system .

Iam at the moment building a 100-gallon gas-heated tubular type heating system for my client. In a week or so I will be able to test run it .

As soon as the temperature goes above 200 celcius syn-gas starts coming out which I use to heat the furnace .
In this manner 10% of syn-gas produced which is usually wasted, Now utilized plus ZERO-emission.
So now it's a so called CLOSED LOOP-process

[markusov]

heatingg system

Hello Jetijs ;
Nice to hear from U again & again .
Well I think quizzes will encourage everyone to ponder a bit & help to build a healthy debate .
I will definitely share my experience with the forum community .

Heating with Band heaters :
They have to heat the walls of the reactor first which takes a lot of time specially when larger reactor's having capacity of 100-gallon plus, the wall thickness almost doubles .
When I placed a heater in the center of the reactor from top2bottom in a metal tube. The heat generated is absorbed by the material in EVER-direction .
Note, in band-heaters the bands can only transfer heat in ONE-direction (i.e: to the walls of the reactor) . The other direction is where the glass-wool absorbs all the heat .
secondly heat has to travel from the walls of the reactor to the plastic material which is a very bad conductors & puts-up resistance to heat to pass-through.

Placing heating system in the center of the reactor convects the heat quickly & equally to the feedstock , no need to heat the walls first .

That's why All the boiler's I have seen has a heating system placed inside the furnace.

I hope my conclusion is in the right direction .


In my country at the momment there is acute elec-power shortage .
So Iam forced to look for a gas-heating system .

Iam at the moment building a 100-gallon gas-heated tubular type heating system for my client. In a week or so I will be able to test run it .

As soon as the temperature goes above 200 celcius syn-gas starts coming out which I use to heat the furnace .
In this manner 10% of syn-gas produced which is usually wasted, Now utilized plus ZERO-emission.
So now it's a so called CLOSED LOOP-process

Hello Asad,
I have been folowing all the posts here on these forum for about a year.It has encouraged me to build a reactor of 100 litres.Some experiments heve taken place.....not so far es you are.....Here you can see a type of heating system that a german company use.

Öl -"Made in Germany" - aus Kunststoff Abfall wird Öl - YouTube

hope it helps.

markusov

[imakebiodiesel]

Here is yet another material that diesel can be made from. The reactor we have been working on could be used for this process also.
Turning wood into oil, in two simple steps | Reuters

[extraloud]

wood to oil

biodiesel -

the bulk of my previous work has been in this process

it require "fast pyrolysis" to get good conversion yield - such as using a fluidized bed. the slow batch process of the plastic may not work as good.

then you need to quickly condense using a quench system.

the oils produced are not good - there is a high oxygen content -20-30% which requires hydrotreating with cataylst - to drop the level of O.

the raw oil has high level of water and cannot be mixed with diesel - the O level needs to drop to about 10% and then it can be mixed with fuel oil - for like process heating.

there is much work in this area - a company called kior is one of the leaders in this
KiOR, Inc. - Home

also
http://www.gastechnology.org/webroot...01_13_2011.xml

there is also work on Torrefaction Torrefaction - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

to turn wood into a fuel more like coal. raise the heating value.

[otpadnoulje]

[QUOTE=imakebiodiesel;158276] I am experimenting with clay which has been soaked in dilute sulphuric acid ( battery acid)for 2 weeks and then washed with water.
It may be some time before I can test this activated clay because my present clay catalyst is still working perfectly after 6 batches and want to find out how long it will last.
QUOTE]

Please, describe your process of activated clay. Is your activated catalys still good.
Thanks

[harley5150]

Hi,

I am really impressed with your work. I am considering building one of these myself. I was wondering if you could tell me what the relationship of heat to weight of feedstock, for example how many kw are required per kg or lb of feedstock?

Thanks in advance!!

[otpadnoulje]

Hi,

how many kw are required per kg or lb of feedstock?

Thanks in advance!!

2kg per 1 kWh, cca.

[imakebiodiesel]

Otpadnoulje, I let the clay and sulphuric acid mixture settle for about 2 weeks and then siphoned off the acid. I added clean water and mixed and settled for a couple of days and then siphoned off the water. I repeated this 3 times and mixed it up into a soft dough, wearing gloves of course. I spread it out on a flat board and air dried it. I cut it up into small 20mm cubes and oven dried it.
As a catalyst it works very well, too well in fact. Using the same clay without activation I got about 50% diesel and the rest light fractions and gas . with the activated clay I got only 30% diesel and 70% light fractions and gas.
The problem may be that my reflux column also contains my catalyst. So the heavier fractions are being recracked in the reactor and reprocessed in the catalyst. separating the reflux and the catalyst might prevent overcracking.

[Nygrafite]

Im new to using forums but came across this after trying to find the tempatures required to melt plastic, and the different types, I envisioned the same idea of using a steel barrel to melt the plastic and continued to read the first few pages of this forum, Im in highschool in a green energy academy and would like to build a converter liek this for my senior project, Money is hardly the problem and the liquid fuel burner is what im going with, so two things id like too know, is one if i could contact the friend you helped or you personaly through email as a mentor is required by the state of california for these projects, second thing is i would like too know if using a liquid fuel burner you can still use heating coils and how you would set that up, i will continue to read through these forums and take notes, also thanks for putting this up, Just made my life 1000x's easier.