How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[jantonio]

Dear Imakebiodiesel ;
Gasoline fraction NORMALLY collected upto 150 Celsius .
I ALWAYS deliberately increase the temp of the soup 10 degree more to 160 Celsius to trap the NAPTHENES also.

This give the gasoline more power & performs like Hi-Octane fuel , so the vehicle will not crumble while climbing a hill, bykes can be started in half-kick easily . The drive becomes more pleasure ...

Now after hearing the chemical reaction with CaOH2 from U .
My guess the Hydrogen particles are sticking with naptha particles & making them heavier like diesel particles .This forces the gasoline to underperform.


Now Iam thinking about following two options to try ;

1) Reducing the CaOH percentage from 4 to 2% of the feedstock .
2) Decreasing the temperature of the Gasoline range from 16 to 150 Celsius . This will avoid the naptha particles to be present in the Gasoline range .

I would like to have your opinion , which option would be suitable ???

Hello Assad,
I have read that you tried adding lime to your waste motor oil. What was the best WMO/lime proportion you came up with? 2%, 1%? When you say 2% are you talking about weight or volume? Thank you and keep the good work:

[jantonio]

Catalyst

Hi guys,
Jetijs thank you for starting an excellent thread: plastic to diesel. I`v been doing this for years now. Currently running my 4th generation reactor (making 15 l/h of diesel) and have plans of upgrading it next week as I`v got some new ideas on how to improve it. Actually, I stumbled accidentally upon this thread and followed it carefully from the beginning and I could`t resist temptation to drop few words here. I can say only one thing: good job BUT it is not as simple as it looks like. I see that everyone here is eager on making a conversion unit for himself and run on his own fuel but has anyone actually (of you who are making this fuel) run his vehicle on this fuel solo more than 10 000km? I have. And I had quite a lot of problems. Remember this is just simple thermal cracking and you get a lot of junk in the mixture. If the fuel is not catalytically upgraded sooner or later you will end up with blocked fuel lines, filter, pump and injectors. How I know this? It happened to me few times I`v tried many different combinations of reactor setups and feed mixtures. I`m still learning and I`m ready to share my experience with those of you who are already doing this seriously. Cheers

Kaguar,
What kind of catalysts do you use?

[Asad Farooqui]

hydrated lime

Hello Assad,
I have read that you tried adding lime to your waste motor oil. What was the best WMO/lime proportion you came up with? 2%, 1%? When you say 2% are you talking about weight or volume? Thank you and keep the good work:

Hello ;
Thanks for quoting my old article . If U go through those days articles, all is mentioned & discussed in depth .
My feedstock was PP:WMO ratio=(75:25)
Hydrated lime =2-5% by weight of your feedstock .

In my experience more U add lime U will get good color & low odor . My friend in Brazil says they use upto 7% lime with there feedstock .

Increased amount of Hydrated lime on the other make the Gasoline fuel range a bit heavier & engine knocking with slow pickup I observed . The car seemed to be heavier in running .

So U have to make a balance formula after trial & ERRORS .

[Asad Farooqui]

silver platter

Based on the # of people posting variations of "Please tell me how to do this, with step by step instructions, parts lists, etc. i.e. wanting it on a 'silver platter', I would expect you will soon have a long waiting list of clients.
Jim

Hello Jim ;
If U like to have a WTL unit on a silver platter, I'll be glad to make one for U. Just E-mail me at ;
ahl_asadfarooqui@yahoo.com
Mobile number = 0092-334-3819549

I had a skype-call experience with a community member who was shy on discussing his problems on the forum .

We had an hour long discussion & it was a pleasure sharing eachother's experiences.

My skype.id = asad.farooqui3

[jantonio]

Coke

Hello ;
Thanks for quoting my old article . If U go through those days articles, all is mentioned & discussed in depth .
My feedstock was PP:WMO ratio=(75:25)
Hydrated lime =2-5% by weight of your feedstock .

In my experience more U add lime U will get good color & low odor . My friend in Brazil says they use upto 7% lime with there feedstock .

Increased amount of Hydrated lime on the other make the Gasoline fuel range a bit heavier & engine knocking with slow pickup I observed . The car seemed to be heavier in running .

So U have to make a balance formula after trial & ERRORS .

Thank you Asad. Lime is cheap over here so im gonna try with more than 5%. I have another question. Have you tried cracking plain waste motor oil (without plastic) ?

[Asad Farooqui]

wmo

Thank you Asad. Lime is cheap over here so im gonna try with more than 5%. I have another question. Have you tried cracking plain waste motor oil (without plastic) ?

HELLO ;
Yes I have tried WMO without plastics.
The liquid fuel produced is better in every respect .

In my country WMO is twice as expensive than w-plastic , otherwise I would have completely switched to WMO .

[Betopty]

My only other doubt is how you will use the o2 sensors to achieve level control. Perhaps you could expand on that as well


I have great intrest in your Mineral spirit idea. I believe it is a marketable, much more expensive product than diesel (at least in My country), and requires little or no licencing compared to manufacturing/selling/distributing diesel

Looking over my notes I see You commented on this a while back specifying destillation temperatures of 65-69 C. What is your suggested reactor temperature? What is your estimated yield (kg of waste to liter of white spirits) using PP?


I believe this is a fabulous alternative

Hi Assad
Perhaps you can expand on your use of 02 sensors as level devices, and the characteristics that make waste PP more suitable to the production of WS, as well as the expected yields. I beieve these two points can contribute to expand the boundaries of this forum greatly as they refocus the process into yet another area of production.

[congnghiah4]

hi everybody!

I have long time come back forum. I have some suggestions for everyone. temperature of the catalyst components must be higher than 450 C during the catalytic reaction will generate heat. At this temperature of 510-530 C. High reaction Wax reduce this limit C1-C4 is decrease and reduce the amount of olefin, the color of lighter fuel. efficiency of the process will increase. From clay catalysts were activated by acid with Ph = 3 in place of expensive catalysts.
thank
NGHIA

[Asad Farooqui]

clay catalyst

hi everybody!

I have long time come back forum. I have some suggestions for everyone. temperature of the catalyst components must be higher than 450 C during the catalytic reaction will generate heat. At this temperature of 510-530 C. High reaction Wax reduce this limit C1-C4 is decrease and reduce the amount of olefin, the color of lighter fuel. efficiency of the process will increase. From clay catalysts were activated by acid with Ph = 3 in place of expensive catalysts.
thank
NGHIA

Hello Nghia ;
Welcome back to the forum .
I guess the high temp U mentioned is for PE mostly .
What type of clay U used ???
Is it a bentonite clay ?
Catalyst U recommend is for the liquid phase or Vapor phase contact ?

[congnghiah4]

My mix is roughly 80%PE, 15% PP and 5% PS. My reactor temperature is the same as everyone's 380 - 450C but the head of my reflux column is 220C max.
From each kilo of plastic I get roughly 470 ml of liquid fuel ( s.g.0.810) and about 40 gms of char, the rest I presume is gas. each batch is slightly different but these are typical figures.

hi ASAD!

I used zeolite Y substrate is 60W% kaolin, 40% w zeolite Y and Vapor phase contact
my experimental of the zeolite Y and the temperature to rise.
the results obtained highest performance gasolin . products is colors of lemon yellow and coke are the lowest.
jetijs result of transferring the heat to 380-420 C reaction efficiency is high but dark. temperature because of the low catalytic olefin products contain excrement. This is in line with my own experience.

thank
NGHIA

[benadrit]

Alternative pyrolysis - Karrick LTC method. Lewis Karrick: Low Temperature Carbonization of Coal and Lewis C.Karrick: US Patents ~ Low Temperature Carbonization of Coal and finally Lewis C. Karrick -- Low Temperature Carbonization (LTC) of Coal

This was the method funded, developed and utilized by the US gov for direct competition with the Fischer/Tropsch method of converting coal into gasoline et al. It has a great many corollaries with the discussion. Particularly with the environment inside the reactor vessel and the temperatures needed for optimum conversion. I wonder a lot whether or not the basics common to all refineries is not just how all these hydrocarbons are converted one into the other in every process.

BTW all patents and info are public domain.

[Betopty]

Conspiracy?

Lewis C.Karrick: US Patents ~ Low Temperature Carbonization of Coal

Interestingly none of the patents or the pdf opened up...
the story f the invention is filled with oligopoly pressured throughout, what a coincidence this information is unavailable.

[grunthos]

Interestingly none of the patents or the pdf opened up...
the story f the invention is filled with oligopoly pressured throughout, what a coincidence this information is unavailable.

They opened for me. I didn't find much practical information relating to this thread, that I could see.

I think if you could not open them, it has much more to do with systems and software being stupid, rather than some great conspiracy

[drmattfombong]

Newbee

Am just a freshman who is a grand daddy living in the Dark Continent.
I want to develop this project to alleviate the rampant pollution of the entire continent by plastics imported from other continents.

I have dreams of starting on a scale of say 200 liters a day.
I am thinking about mixing shredded plastics with waste oil and scrap metal filings.

This is a bid to facilitate transfer of materials and heat in the apparatus.
The metal filings are heated by an induction heater and they in turn heat the mix right inside: very efficiently. The filings, perhaps even steel balls are recycled.

Of course the tank will be entirely of non-conductive but hard, dense ceramic material: a zirconia or alumina pipe will be sufficient as the mixture flows through it to a chamber where it expands and evaporates.

The induction heating coil surrounds the pipe and heats the oil-and- plastic mixture to cracking temperatures. The temperature in this case can easily be controlled by appropriate switching of the high frequency inverter of the induction heater.

Such a system will be highly efficient and produce much cleaner fuel - I think.

It does not look complicated at least in my head.

Who's gonna try something like that with me?

Somebody, say something!

[dutchdivco]

Dr Matt

Firstly, HOPING you have read thru the whole thread, 1st post to lat, several times.Assuming you have, as a result, developed a thorough understanding of the process, including the potential dangers. And, have to re-iterate a 'reminder', not just to you, but to ALL readers;In developing this technology, what we are doing, is really building a small oil refinery; Even the 'Professionals' have had several catastrophic accidents with oil refineries, with fatalities. And they are SUPPOSED to know what they are doing!

Now, that said. On using cramic or alumina pipe; I posted earlier; there is a material thats made and sold, to INSULATE pipe; in boiler type operations. I bought some on Craigslist, that a contractor had 'left over', and got it dirt cheap. Its made like sections of pipe, 4' long, and with inside diameters 'just right' to fit around the outside of the pipe. The 2 sizes I got are (about) 18" and 23" inside diameter. Each 'piece' comes in 2 sections, in other words the 'piece' of pipe has been split, longitudinally, so it cn be put on the pipe AFTER its been 'plumbed up'. It is fairly friable, easily breakable, though, one would have to find some way of strengthening it, to use it AS the reactor vessel. Thought I'd mention it, as you might be able to find a small amount fairly cheap, by buying 'left over' material from a big construction job. I suspect, because it is fairly fragile, contractors probably buy a little extra, in order to insure they don't run out.

If the metal included was ball bearings, they should be fairly easy to seperate from the charcoal residue, left at the end of the process. Its even possible that some kind of agitation could cause the ball bearings to dislodge the residue from the inside of the vessel, thereby facilitating cleaning. That way you would get dual use; helping to transfer heat AND facilitate cleaning! Just my thoughts, and sorry if I sounded lecturing at the beginning of this post, just wanting to make sure no one ends up with a 'Darwin award' from pursueing this technology.Jim