How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[otpadnoulje]

Thanks , Imakebiodiesel. It helps me very much.

[fibuslitero]

I have found another member in the community :

My newly constructed fuel making still in operation - YouTube

[Asad Farooqui]

Fuel-burner

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.

Hello Nygrafite :
I have just completed a GAS-burner heated small pyrolysis unit for a Client .
It's capacity is about 05-LTR per batch .
No electric heating system is required for it . U can also run it on liquid fuel like LPG.
1) If you want I can also built such a unit of any capacity for your High school project .

2) Mentor you mean someone who could guide in this sort of project .
If so I'll be glad to assist . Let me know what sort of advise you or state of california requires .

For your info I am running a 100-gallon batch size unit .

My e-mail address = ahl_asadfarooqui@yahoo.com

[Asad Farooqui]

heating system

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.

markusov

Hello Markusov ;
Nice to hear from new community members .
You are developing a 100-ltr unit & need any advise, don't be shy to share your experiences .
We ALL here at the forum learn from our mistakes & with good advise from lots of dedicated community member's soon you'll be up & running .

If still U are shy U can e-mail me for any advise at ahl_asadfarooqui@yahoo.com


The video link U send me is in German language and I guess U are also from a german speaking country .
After going through the video i can understand exactly what they are upto .

These are very expensive plants sold at around 02-05 million euros , just like OZMOTECH Germany .
The heating system usually they use is a Gas-fired Thermic-OIL Heating system which is very expensive & not feasible for small units of 100-500 LTR like ours .
For our capacity electric heating or gas-fired burner tube system is viable .

I have almost completed a NEW Gas-fired horizontal-Tube chamber placed INSIDE the reactor for heating . No electric heater's are used .

I hope in a week or so I will be conducting trial runs .
Would like to share my experience ASAP .

Hope to hear from you soon.

[avengeusa]

this is very interesting, I am glad i found this forum, I have been heating wmo and running it through my own centrifuge i built, and running the fuel in an old army truck for 3 years....

I am wanting to incorporate this into my system of making fuel, i think a centrifuge may be helpful as well in making fuel

I am going to build a setup and start experimenting soon, I am on the lookout for tanks and am going to machine up some flanges, I have a good welder, so I shall see where this all goes

[imakebiodiesel]

Hi Asad, I would be very interested to see a diagram of your gas heating system. I too have found that even on my small reactor electric band heaters do not last long. Also i like the idea of feeding the uncondensible gas back into the heating process.

[otpadnoulje]

Heat exchanger is heart of this machines. I am trying to calculate heat exchanger design. It is hard job. Google tells a very indefinite.

There is no other but expirience .

[Alec]

Hi Asad, I would be very interested to see a diagram of your gas heating system. I too have found that even on my small reactor electric band heaters do not last long. Also i like the idea of feeding the uncondensible gas back into the heating process.

Hi Imakebiodiesel.
I use only one gas heater to heat my reactor, catalyst and first condensator.
I store my own gas temporary in a big plastic bag and then run it through a compressor to the furnis. I run 600 plus degrees C.

[davidbrookstone]

Newb

Hello everyone! I'd like to introduce myself...

Great forum, you all are very intelligent and this idea is very interesting and worthwhile. I am coming from the Wood-Gas field, I have experimented with wood gasification and the GEK Gasifier, that's what led me here. I have read all of the forum posts and look forward to making my own reactor setup! Thanks and good luck everyone!

[davidbrookstone]

My initial plans

After seeing what you guys have all tried, I am going to go with a gas oven setup. This is so I can just pay $40 for a used gas oven and not have to worry about pid temp controller, and whatever else you need. I am trying to KISS.

I am going to use a natural gas oven and convert it to propane (for starting purposes.) Inside of the oven I am going to have to construct a rectangular metal box that fits just inside the area of the oven with a door on the top (for cleaning) and the gas out fitting. (I will probably use 20 gauge sheet steel.) This is going to be a little complicated but I can't just use a metal air tank because it won't use up the space in the oven properly.

I am contemplating an auger feed system that will feed stock in through the side of the oven an into the internal combustion box, but at this point, a batch process will suffice and KISS.

I can then drill a hole in the center of the four burners and pipe the gas out into the 3 or four condensate tanks. If needed, I can use one of the burners on the stove-top to heat the first tank even further.

Let me know what you guys think. I still might use a thermocouple to get a basic temperature reading inside the main reaction vessel, and the other tanks.

I am planning to use the vaporous gas when the reaction is in process to feed back into the gas line in on the oven.

One question for Jetijs--- With your auger that you have made--- are you sure no oxygen is getting in? Its seems like it would not be airtight and introduce oxygen into the reaction vessel. Or is it minimal and not even something to worry about? What do you think?

On to getting a source of plastic-- I am going to use #2 milk jugs-- cut them up and run them through my cross cut paper shredder. You guys think this will work good?

[imakebiodiesel]

My son Ruairi ( who is 15) and his friend Owen have been working with me on this project. They entered a science competition sponsored by intel and have won first place. They will represent Ireland at the Google science fair in Pennsylvania next year. Here is a link to an article about them, at the bottom you can see a picture of our mini reactor.

Turning plastic into petrol wins top SciFest award « Science Calling!

As part of the project we were able to visit Cynar, a plant in Ireland where they convert 60 tons of waste plastic into diesel every week. Interestingly they have abandoned the use of catalysts and use only closely monitored temperature and gas velocity.
As for me, work begins now on a larger reactor with an initial load of 50kg and a continuous feed.

[extraloud]

to biodiesel

thats awesome !!! leading the future !!!


just a note - Cynar uses Ozmotech's technology as seen in this vid Ozmotech's Channel - YouTube

but i think ozmotech is out of business now

[otpadnoulje]

Imakebiodiesel, very nice!

If no catalyst, what will they do? Redistillation ?

[imakebiodiesel]

Cynar began with Ozmotech's system but found that it did not work properly. They re- engineered it to work with an improved reflux/contactor tower and better control systems. The people at Cynar are not very complimentary about Ozmotech. I believe you are right, Osmotech did go out of business. Cynar add both a pour point depressant and an anti-oxidant to the diesel to make it perform the same as ordinary diesel. Tests show that it has 20% less emissions and a cetane number of 69!

[Alec]

1st prize

to biodiesel
Congratulations!!!
It's nice to be part of the forum.
Alec.