How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[imakebiodiesel]

In my reactor the condenser has a ball valve at the bottom which is only opened to draw off fuel. As the reactor cools down the decrease in pressure inside is slight. The level in my water bubbler drops about 1/2 an inch. it would have to drop 10 times that much before air could get into the reactor.
I should say that I always carry on cracking untill the gas and fuel production stops completely and I always let the reactor cool down before opening it.
Stopping a reactor when the whole outfit is full of condensable gas is a different matter. The condensation would cause a partial vacuum in the reactor which could draw in air and be very dangerous.
One could argue that keeping the propane purge going for a little while after stopping the reactor would prevent the drop in pressure. It would have to be vented off or perhaps used for some other purpose, perhaps brewing a pot of coffee after a hard days cracking.

[imakebiodiesel]

Just to give everybody a clearer picture of what I propose I have posted this very basic diagram. This is more or less exactly what my small reactor looks like.


Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[gowriel]

many congratulations for this amazing topic

The process is really simple, it is similar to how alcohol is made. If you heat plastic waste in non oxygen environment, it will melt, but will not burn. After it has melted, it will start to boil and evaporate, you just need to put those vapors through a cooling pipe and when cooled the vapors will condense to a liquid and some of the vapors with shorter hydrocarbon lengths will remain as a gas. The exit of the cooling pipe is then going through a bubbler containing water to capture the last liquid forms of fuel and leave only gas that is then burned. If the cooling of the cooling tube is sufficient, there will be no fuel in the bubbler, but if not, the water will capture all the remaining fuel that will float above the water and can be poured off the water. On the bottom of the cooling tube is a steel reservoir that collects all the liquid and it has a release valve on the bottom so that the liquid fuel can be poured out. Here are some pictures to better understand the design:









This device works on electricity (3 phase), it has six nichrome coils as heating elements and consumes a total of 6kW (1kW each coil). The coils are turned on and off by three solid state relays, one for each phase, the relays are controlled by a digital thermostat with a temperature sensor just a bit below the lid, so that the vapor temperature can be monitored. You need to heat the plastic slowly to about 350 degrees and just wait till it does the magic. Our device has a capacity of 50 liters and can hold about 30 kg of shredded plastic. The process takes about 4 hours, but it can be shortened considerably by tweaking the design a bit. As I said, this makes a liquid fuel that can be used as multifuel, that means it can be used on diesel engines and also on gasoline engines, but we still need to test it will work on gasoline. It works for diesel engines just fine, that has already been tested. There is a difference in what plastic you use, if you use polyethylene (plastic cans, plastic foil, and all kind of flexible non break plastics) you will get out liquid fuel that will solidify as it cools into paraffin, it is still good for diesel engines as long as you use a heated fuel tank, because it needs to be heated just about at 30 degrees celsius to be liquid and transparent. If you don't want that, you can put the paraffin through the device for one more time and you will chop those hydrocarbons even smaller and half of the paraffin will turn to liquid fuel and other half will remain a paraffin, but much denser and will melt at higher temperatures, this is the stuff you can make candles out of and it does not smell at all when burned, maybe a bit like candles. But if you use polypropylene (computer monitor cases, printer cases, other plastics that break easily), you get out only liquid fuel, no paraffin at all. All you need is just filter the fuel out of solids and you good to go and put it in your gas tank. We have made the analysis and it is almost the perfect diesel fraction. It has no acids or alkalines in it, like fuel from tires does. The unit in the pictures can convert about 60 kg of plastic into 60 liters of fuel in one day. Other methods of heating the reactor can be employed, electricity is just easier to work with and control. Some Japanese companies manufacture such devices, but their prices for this size unit is more than 100 000$, our home made device cost us 900$ max. We use aluminum oxide bricks to insulate the heat, they are light as foam and can be easily cut in any shape, but any kind of insulator can be used. The bricks make the highest costs for this device. It can also be made using liquid fuel burners to heat the reactor, this will enable to make the device self sustainable by using about 10-15% of the produced fuel along with the produced gas. A small farm can use a device this size and make fuel for itself by converting plastic waste to fuel, farms have very much plastic waste and it is a big problem, at least in my country. Our next goal is to make the same thing possible using biomass, every farm could then use old leafs, wet grass, saw dust and all kind of biomass and gasify it into tar like substance that can then be put through the pyrolysis device and turned into biodiesel. But we will see about that. Here are some fuel samples:

These are samples from polyethylene, in the first run out comes mostly paraffin like liquid that solidifies at temperatures below 20 degrees celsius, the other clear sample is from the same paraffin that is gone through the process one more time. Will post more pictures and a video later.
Thanks,
Jetijs

Amazing topic that made me think twice about "cracking plastics"...
Mister Minoru Aoyama, Mr. in charge of sales dept. at BLEST COMPANY dissapointed me BIG TIME ,after asking him for a price(reasonable and normal thing to do,as I intend to turn plastic into petroleum or whatever turns out and BURNS...) .
He never returned my email/s!
Very rude of him!
But anyway...
I want to know if the products from this reactor can be burned in an oil burner that will heat my house!
Also ,I only got to the second page of this topic because I don't have that much time and it's late here where I am now; I ask those with more experience and who actively participated in this talk:should I read the WHOLE TOPIC or is enough what Jetijs posted?
I'll try reading and "extracting" the important things!
THANK YOU ALL,it's amazing what this internet can do on this world!
How did we lived without it FOR SO LONG?!

[batwicho]

found a (child)mistake

[QUOTE=imakebiodiesel;200008]Batwichco, we need more information to be able to give you advice. What plastics did you use? What size of batch? HWhat temperature did you go to in the reactor? Do you have a reflux column?, What catalyst if any did you use.? What kind of condenser do you have?

I have a simple construction Reactor, 3 condenser and bubbler. The materials that were inside are 20 liters WMO, kompaktmiks-PP, HDPE, LDPE, PS. A condenser C1 = 30 liters, C2 = 20 liters, C3 = 20 liters. I do not use a catalyst and at this stage. I haven't a reflux column.

[batwicho]

found a (child)mistake

More information please. Did the reactor reach 400C? How about some pictures? Thanks.

The temperature was not enough, because I had the wrong connection between cables. At the bottom of the reactor have been about 300 C and this certainly was not enough ... Thank you!

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Amazing topic that made me think twice about "cracking plastics"...
Mister Minoru Aoyama, Mr. in charge of sales dept. at BLEST COMPANY dissapointed me BIG TIME ,after asking him for a price(reasonable and normal thing to do,as I intend to turn plastic into petroleum or whatever turns out and BURNS...) .
He never returned my email/s!
Very rude of him!
But anyway...
I want to know if the products from this reactor can be burned in an oil burner that will heat my house!
Also ,I only got to the second page of this topic because I don't have that much time and it's late here where I am now; I ask those with more experience and who actively participated in this talk:should I read the WHOLE TOPIC or is enough what Jetijs posted?
I'll try reading and "extracting" the important things!
THANK YOU ALL,it's amazing what this internet can do on this world!
How did we lived without it FOR SO LONG?!

I see no reason why you could not use the oil you extract from plastics in a retort could not be used in an oil burner for heating your house. The only thing that you might want to be careful of is to make sure your oil burner is well vented outside.

Plastics; however, are not the only source of fuel that could be extracted using a retort, such as is discussed here. For instance, volatiles can be extracted from any matrix and used as fuel.

The basic idea of extracting volatiles through baking them out of a matrix in a retort can be employed for a wide range of substances. Terpenes can be extracted from wood and other plant materials. Vegetable oil can be extracted from various plant materials, such as algae, as well as from press cakes from expeller press extraction of vegetable oil from seeds. Even coal, oil shale and tar sands can be easily baked for their volatiles. The volatiles can then be distilled immediately upon leaving the retort. Later the heavy fractions can be cracked in the same retort.

There are often small seams that are too small for commercial extraction in regions where coal, oil shale and tar sands are. However, an individual could back their truck up to one of these many small seams and quickly shovel a whole pickup truck load in a short time. That load of coal, oil shale or tar sands could then be taken back home to a small retort, where the volatiles can be extracted.

What is left after removing the volatiles from coal is coke. Coke burns hotter and cleaner, so it could be burned after extraction in a coal stove.

The volatiles extracted from various fuel and oil sources burn very similarly. So, one need only inspect the specific gravity of the various fractions. The fraction that has a specific gravity equal to gasoline (petrol) can be burned in a gasoline engine. The fraction that has a specific gravity equal to kerosene (paraffin) will burn like kerosene. The fraction that has a specific gravity equal to diesel fuel will burn like diesel fuel. The fraction that has a specific gravity equal to motor oil can most probably be used as motor oil.

[gowriel]

right but not quite

Well ,it's true what you say but I had the opportunity to talk to my uncle this morning , wich is a chemistry engineer and he told me I qoute : "You're crazy dear nephew if you think you can do such thing and not put something on fire,blow up or get to jail!"...
As you can see ,not very "encouraging" discussion...
Also,I had to google what is that "retort" you mentioned before...

As a "note" :
Here in Romania,I can buy 1 ton of plastics for 200 dollars,the electricity cost NOW 20 cents for 1 Kw of one phase power/240 volts!
But the IMF(International Fund of "Misery") has allready told that will be changed with 50%(at least) from 2013...
My problem is that if the coming winter will be as the ONE THAT PASSED(4 meter tall snow and minus 25 degrees Celsius) I can't rely anymore on the gas company wich dictates how much and WHEN to pay the so called "gas/CH4" they deliver through the damn pipe...
Last winter the flame burning in the gas cooker stove was redish instead of blue,and the gas central heating unit didn't stopped working , although the whole house is well insulated ,the thermostat was set at 19 degrees celcius ,etc...
When I decided to burn some wood in the 2 wood stoves I allready had ,the surprise was gigantic: with one fire in the morning in both stoves the central heating unit didn't start until around 14:00 in the afternoon...
I also bought some wood for "assurance" but some friend of mine told me of the calorific value of some materials,and that's when "the light came on" in my head regarding plastic wastes wich some say the have around 10 kw/37 MJ in one kg...
THAT'S SOMETHING,considering it's thrown away by the tons!
That is why I got here...
I will try to replicate the small version wich Jetijs told another user to build!
I'll also "investigate" the retort thing;I have all the summer to "process" plastics for the coming winter!
Thank you all and VERY GOOD FORUM/TOPIC!

[imakebiodiesel]

I decided to try out my idea of purging my reactor with propane. I connected up the propane supply and turned on the purge at a very low level before lighting the main burner to heat the reactor. I used a pilot flame to determine when the air was purged and the gas was flowing. After 6 minutes the flame lit the gas burner with a weak yellow flame. After 8 minutes the flame turned blue as you would expect with pure propane. I then felt confident enough to start heating the reactor and process as usual. Once cracking began I turned off the purge and turned it on again when the gas output began to subside. I ran the purge for 15 minutes after I turned the reactor off to let things cool down safely.
All in all it went quite smoothly although I noticed no difference in the quality or quantity of fuel.

[thissideup]

I decided to try out my idea of purging my reactor with propane. I connected up the propane supply and turned on the purge at a very low level before lighting the main burner to heat the reactor. I used a pilot flame to determine when the air was purged and the gas was flowing. After 6 minutes the flame lit the gas burner with a weak yellow flame. After 8 minutes the flame turned blue as you would expect with pure propane. I then felt confident enough to start heating the reactor and process as usual. Once cracking began I turned off the purge and turned it on again when the gas output began to subside. I ran the purge for 15 minutes after I turned the reactor off to let things cool down safely.
All in all it went quite smoothly although I noticed no difference in the quality or quantity of fuel.

We need more posts like this, actual experiments and the outcome. short and sweet.

[imakebiodiesel]

Thank you for your comment Thissideup.
I would just like to add some safety notes. It is very important to ensure that your reactor and condensers are completely gas tight. A good test would be to block the hose coming from the bubbler and turn the purge gas on full. Check every connection and joint on the whole apparatus by smearing washing up liquid over them. If bubbles appear there is a leak and must be repaired before using the reactor.
NB the apparatus must be gas tight whether you use a propane purge or not.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Thank you for your comment Thissideup.
I would just like to add some safety notes. It is very important to ensure that your reactor and condensers are completely gas tight. A good test would be to block the hose coming from the bubbler and turn the purge gas on full. Check every connection and joint on the whole apparatus by smearing washing up liquid over them. If bubbles appear there is a leak and must be repaired before using the reactor.
NB the apparatus must be gas tight whether you use a propane purge or not.

Leak testing with soap bubbles is good advice, imakebiodiesel. Glad purging your system with a flammable gas worked for you.

For those working on their condensers, there are a lot of interesting condenser designs explored on this moonshine forum
Home Distiller • View topic - Diagrams and Plans Thread

[gowriel]

regarding the condenser

I've found 10 meters of 15mm diameter,1mm wall thickness copper pipe in the attic that was suppose to be used in a solar hot water system but I got "busy" and never had time for it!
What do you think?
It might be good for a condenser?
I have a 200 liter barrel HDPE for this "project" and another one similar out of steel,some firebricks (not that much aluminium oxide content but what'a'hey, it's my first "build"!)

Now for the heat elements, I've found in a town located 40 km from me , 80/20 NiCr heating elements of maximum 1200 watts and wich are deformable at temperature room, a diameter of 3.7 mm , maximum working temperature of 750 degrees Celcius and a length of 1700 mm in hot state!
Got to make them a visit these days!

http://s16.postimage.org/b06dwo4xh/copper1.jpg

[Beyond Biodiesel]

I've found 10 meters of 15mm diameter,1mm wall thickness copper pipe in the attic that was suppose to be used in a solar hot water system but I got "busy" and never had time for it!
What do you think?
It might be good for a condenser?

I used 1/2" (12.7mm) ID tubing for the inside of my tube-in-tube linear condensers, so it should work fine.

Pilot Plant
Building a small version of your apparatus is an excellent way to inexpensively, and safely, work out the bugs in your system before building a device as large as you may want it to be. A one gallon (4L) capacity is probably the ideal size for the first version of a plastic cracking/WMO distillation system. Once you have operated it several times you will have found faults in your design, that might have resulted in a fire, but the fire would have been small enough to manage, as long as you built and operated your system far away from ignition sources and property, and had fire suppression equipment on hand.

Once the bugs are worked out on a small scale, then they can be easily scaled up to a working model, say 55-gllons (200L). However, the condensers might transfer over to the larger model, so only the retort might be all that has to be scaled up.

Leak testing the entire system with soap bubbles prior to operating it is good advice.

Retort
In a chemistry laboratory, a retort is a glassware device used for distillation or dry distillation of substances. It consists of a spherical vessel with a long downward-pointing neck. The liquid to be distilled is placed in the vessel and heated. The neck acts as a condenser, allowing the evaporated vapors to condense and flow along the neck to a collection vessel placed underneath.[1]

In the chemical industry, a retort is an airtight vessel in which substances are heated for a chemical reaction producing gaseous products to be collected in a collection vessel or for further processing. Such industrial-scale retorts are used in shale oil extraction and the production of charcoal. A process of heating oil shale to produce shale oil, shale gas, and spent shale is commonly called retorting.

In the food industry, pressure cookers are often referred to as retorts, meaning "canning retorts".
Retort - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[gowriel]

Hi..You are quoting cost of electricity ... KWH..... to run at "X" amount per liter...here in Australia I pay 19c a KWH and it goes up 16% from today 1/1/2011 ...My aim will be to run a 10 KVA diesel generator...to convert plastic to fuel and have enough power to run household power requirements....We have be forced to accept smart meters in the near future...and the power supply company's will change the tariff when it suits them and can charge up to 38c a KWH at what they call their peak periods...I want to be set setup so I can isolate from the mains when these periods are in force...These peak periods would be at least 4 hrs ..The generator would be producing power to convert plastic and run the household at the same time....even it cost's 40c a liter its 1/4 of the diesel price here...and is still a viable proposition...the converted diesel would be making replacement fuel and I would be powering the household free...hope this makes sense.......Avro

...


That is why our next machine will be heated using a diesel burner, there will be no need for electricity anymore

After reading these two posts I began to wonder :why bother with electricity if I have the possibility to use gas(CH4),and after a few "batches" just go with "the thing" it comes out of PP/HDPE and burn it in a diesel burner (I found one rated to 16kw and a 1,4 liter consumption for one hour).
From what the gas company "says on paper" , 1 cubic meter of gas has a calorific value of 9.8Kw;don't know if they say the truth or lie , but it's well known the gas company removes butan and propane "traces" from the main supply...
Of course ,burning efficiency would be less and thus the calorific value would drop somewhere around 7Kw wich I still consider VERY good!
A higher calorific value would mean a faster heating and shorter processing time of the plastics for obtaining the diesel/gasoline mixture!
Just a "thought" as I am thinking better before acting

[gowriel]

We made calculations, it turns out that our device, as crude as it is with much room for improvement, can produce diesel fuel at a cost of 17 US cents a liter, that is when only plastic and electricity is considered. The next machine will probably use a liquid fuel burner to heat the reactor, this could lower the costs even more as it would then run on a small percentage of the produced fuel and also the produced gas would then be used more practically - burned along with the fuel to heat the reactor. Even now, if we would get the electricity from a diesel generator that runs on the produced fuel, it would consume about 20% of the produced fuel, but those generators are never efficient and much of the potential power is lost, so heating the reactor using a burner should be even more efficient. Japan produces such units that run themselves using the produced fuel, their machines use 7-10% of the yield. But they cost more than 100 000$ for a unit the size we have. We also calculated all the materials and work involved to make this device and it comes around 1200$, but it is scalable from table top units up to industrial size units that produce several tons of fuel daily.

Here is a video I made and uploaded on a fake youtube account:
YouTube - Easy way to make your own diesel from plastic waste

Jetijs , I "stumbled" upon a video with a similar instalation but wich used as a zeolite (alumo-silicat catalyst) BEFORE the condenser!
Here it is, just "jump" to 5:09 !
What do you(or others with MORE experience think about this "modification"?
Is it good/NECESARY?
Plastic to oil refinery, in miniature
Plastic to oil refinery, in miniature - YouTube