How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

This is my latest oil fired, thermal cracking prototype which is nearly ready for testing. Those who have been following the build progress on Youtube will have seen the first 4 episodes so far. Today I went to shoot part5 but my phone rang part way through and then it rained. Youtube web address is below for latest video clips and the maiden trial run will be up shortly. Feedstock will be waste mineral oil.
There's some minor finishing to be done. Secure turk flashing, fasten the fan, plumb the pipe-in-hose condenser and extend the flue are the main tasks to do. No doubt there'll be teething problems to solve.

Tip: Subscribe to my Youtube channel for the latest vids as they get released.

[gowriel]

steel condenser surface area?

I have a question for those who know what should the surface area be for the first condenser,the one for the diesel fuel presented in this video:
Easy way to make your own diesel from plastic waste
Easy way to make your own diesel from plastic waste - YouTube
I left several messages there but no response yet:
"@Meskalitto :what is the outside and inside diameter of the first condenser for the diesel fuel?
I have steel pipe with a 110mm outside diameter and a wall thickness of 5 mm so the inside diameter is 100mm;is that enough surface area for this condenser?
I think I'll try to get things together this winter and see what's "the deal" with this FISCHER-TROPSCH reactor!
Thank you!"
I mean, a length and outside+inside diameter for that condenser would be nice!
You got my interest going on this thing (plus the coming even more expensive diesel,gasoline announced for us romanians in the coming few months...).

[Beyond Biodiesel]

gowriel, there has been a lot if discussion of reflux, condensers, and condenser packing, Just check the previous page, pg 62, for such a discussion.

[gowriel]

Kiss

gowriel, there has been a lot if discussion of reflux, condensers, and condenser packing, Just check the previous page, pg 62, for such a discussion.

I don't know about you but if JetiJs realized a machine that turns 25 kg of plastic into 24 liters of DIESEL FUEL,then I am sorry but I honestly don't see any reason for modifying anything in his design!
That's why I was asking about the dimensions of those condensers used by him wich ,as a "curiosity" were/are empty BUT from steel!

[Beyond Biodiesel]

For some people Jetiji walks on water. For others he was simply the first to post on an interesting subject, that could be expanded upon and improved.

[joan27]

do you think our design here is possible?any comment please with this design..or any suggestion to improve it..thanks guys!
we supposed to collect also those excess gas or uncondensed gas through that gas jar shown and then there's a vacuum pump to make it happen..

[Beyond Biodiesel]

joan27, the drawing is too small for me to make out.

[thissideup]

Finally got a couple more hours in on mine. Got the retort insulated with r12 rock wool insulation and skinned. just built a cart tonight to set it all on. the plastic Drum was for mock up, will be a steel drum with rad inside and full of water. will only condense into one collector, as this unit is intended for testing purposes only

[Excalibur]

Success!! I got keen and run the turk retort today while the weather was good.

I made 13liters fuel from 14liters of waste minerals oils. I had two condensers. It took about 5hours.
It was difficult to start at first. I used up 7liters of heating oil.

A cool thing I discovered toward the end was the process would run on its' own non-condensable gases. It was a lot more responsive, efficient and controllable running on these than the oil feed. Part of the turk drum, near the flue was red hot. It had a fantastic howl when the gases were burning. They burned clean too, though the only control I had was to choke the air supply.

The control of heat from oil feed was difficult. I was constantly trying to raise or lower the heat. It was rarely stable for more than a minute at a time.

I noticed that some of the threaded pipe joins leak gases near the retort. I think an upgrade to welded and/or flange joints in the heat affected zones is prudent.

The lighter fraction is separate for the moment. I'll evaluate the results tomorrow.

I made a video clip. I may put it up tomorrow or maybe I'll wait and do something a bit better.

[hyxer]

plastik

does anyone of you guys know if plastic from farm use can be used? i think about the plastik from bale wrap. black and green plastic. or can anyone tell me what it's made of?

[TheQuietDan]

Reducing oxidation

Oxidation of the fuels after processing seems to be a problem because of the open ends of the carbon chains, it got me wondering about the possibility of bubbling pure hydrogen threw the fuel would help. If you use the H from an HHO generator, because the H is unpaired with another H and in a way looking for something to react with and the fuel is looking for something to react with, could this be the answer we are looking for to stabilize the fuels?

I have yet to make a machine yet, I have been reading all the posts and some of them 3-4 times to make sure I understand what I had read. The idea came to me about the 5-6th page and thought someone else would have thought of this by now. Maybe someone with a functional machine could give it a try and see if this is the tahdah moment we are looking for?

[gowriel]

where's the efficiency?!

Success!! I got keen and run the turk retort today while the weather was good.

I made 13liters fuel from 14liters of waste minerals oils. I had two condensers. It took about 5hours.
It was difficult to start at first. I used up 7liters of heating oil.

A cool thing I discovered toward the end was the process would run on its' own non-condensable gases. It was a lot more responsive, efficient and controllable running on these than the oil feed. Part of the turk drum, near the flue was red hot. It had a fantastic howl when the gases were burning. They burned clean too, though the only control I had was to choke the air supply.

The control of heat from oil feed was difficult. I was constantly trying to raise or lower the heat. It was rarely stable for more than a minute at a time.

I noticed that some of the threaded pipe joins leak gases near the retort. I think an upgrade to welded and/or flange joints in the heat affected zones is prudent.

The lighter fraction is separate for the moment. I'll evaluate the results tomorrow.

I made a video clip. I may put it up tomorrow or maybe I'll wait and do something a bit better.

According to this site Typical calorific values of fuels
you burned about 77kwh to obtain around 156 kwh in fuel(it's diesel right?).
That's not very efficient compared to what power Jetijs used to obtain 24 liter of diesel out of 25 kg of plastics!(in page 2 on this topic it says he used 12 kwh of electric power for the whole 4 hours he ran the "thing").
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...tml#post123776
I may have "understood" wrong your post ,but that's not too efficient!
I used these sites as a "guide-line" for my calculations...
Fuels - Higher Calorific Values
Kilojoules to Kilowatt-Hours Conversion Calculator
MAYBE,with wood burning in a "sort of" tile stove wich has high heat retaining properties and the reactor placed INSIDE this stove, would turn better results!
From an energy content point of view,wood would "worth" more than 1 kwh of electricity since , dry wood contains around 4kwh and the burning process in a well built tile stove would be around 70% efficient...
One would still get 2,8kwh from one kg of dry wood or wood briquettes!
I'm not sure at the moment if I should use Jetijs's design /electricity as the heating method or a tile stove wood burning "thing"!
If using the tile stove one could controle heating much easy ,since you know how much energy/wood you put on the firebed>1kg=2,8kwh...
Or at least in theory!

[Excalibur]

According to this site Typical calorific values of fuels
you burned about 77kwh to obtain around 156 kwh in fuel(it's diesel right?).
That's not very efficient compared to what power Jetijs used to obtain 24 liter of diesel out of 25 kg of plastics!(in page 2 on this topic it says he used 12 kwh of electric power for the whole 4 hours he ran the "thing").
http://www.energeticforum.com/renewa...tml#post123776
I may have "understood" wrong your post ,but that's not too efficient!
I used these sites as a "guide-line" for my calculations...
Fuels - Higher Calorific Values
Kilojoules to Kilowatt-Hours Conversion Calculator
MAYBE,with wood burning in a "sort of" tile stove wich has high heat retaining properties and the reactor placed INSIDE this stove, would turn better results!
From an energy content point of view,wood would "worth" more than 1 kwh of electricity since , dry wood contains around 4kwh and the burning process in a well built tile stove would be around 70% efficient...
One would still get 2,8kwh from one kg of dry wood or wood briquettes!
I'm not sure at the moment if I should use Jetijs's design /electricity as the heating method or a tile stove wood burning "thing"!
If using the tile stove one could controle heating much easy ,since you know how much energy/wood you put on the firebed>1kg=2,8kwh...
Or at least in theory!

It used far too much fuel and it's one problem amongst others, I need to fix. I got a result on the first attempt using free oil in the retort and free oil in the burner so I'm happy about that. It needs to be much better though, agreed. Control of the oil fired burners has been difficult to keep a steady temperature and I fought with it during those 5hours. The temps are constantly moving up or down, almost never stable for a minute.
I elected to continue the run knowing that there would be things to learn and from there I could target improvements.
Thinning and/or preheating the oil could help improve efficiency however I want better control as well as efficiency. On an earlier system, I tried spraying the oil in, but this used a huge amount of compressed air so I abandoned the method. It worked quite well though.
What I have been able to pick up is a redundant central heating burner. This has a blower, oil pump and thermostat. Looks like it could work well. We'll see.

[gowriel]

I haven't noticed if you use any form of heat retaining material in your "turk" burner...
I am sure this is one reason you couldn't maintain a steady temperature;heat must acumulate/"store" in something like chamotte or the aluminium oxide bricks that jetijs used around the electric resistance!
For me,electricity would be a disadvantage because one must "distilate" plastic or oil ONLY in a location with electricity,wich is usually easy accesable...
I would like to do this "undisturbed" by anyone
So wood burning tile stove with a good heat retaining capability materials "around" would be ideal;just light a small fire,heat it to a certain temperature then just add small pieces of wood for maintaining that temperature!
Steatite(a crystalline form of magnesium silicate. It is a low loss, low cost, relatively good strength insulating material which can function safely at temperatures up to 2,000° F/1093 degrees Celcius) would have been SOOO good, but at its current prices better go for chamotte bricks!
Oil burners are readily available ,try that instead!
Problem is there aren't many of small size/power...
You could just use "a normal/big" one and fire it once and a while,if the temperature drops too much!
But for good pulverization/oil fog formation you're right: you need compressed air or some type of pump to finely spray the oil and burn efficiently and easily controled!
Post a video on your device;you made me so curios!
cheers
P.S. I found it:
DIESEL from waste oil thermal cracking machine, EPISODE 6 Maiden run
DIESEL from waste oil thermal cracking machine, EPISODE 6 Maiden run - YouTube

[Excalibur]

Thanks and sorry that last video is not wonderful footage of the turk running. I was somewhat rushed. Interestingly, it shows the turk burning very clean at that moment. No smoke to be seen.

I've run a wood fired thermal cracking unit before. Pics on this forum a few months ago. The struggle with temps was the same however I had no air inlet damper or flue control, so adding these would possibly do the trick. A further problem was quality of wood. It needs to be consistant for dryness, otherwise adding slightly wet timber quenches the fire for a minute or two.

For me electricity is 3 or 4 times what Jetijs quoted per KW so while I tried it with a basic modified oven set up, the power cost put the idea on hold.
I had also pondered about the possibility of a hybrid wood/oil burner. Effectively even with my wood fired unit, I used oil to recover the temperature when needed. I've got coal available for cheap too but then oil is free at the moment so I'd like to improve that.

I put the last video in the series up today. This shows the fuel I made with a test for igniting. Since then I put some of the lighter fraction in the mower and mowed some lawn, for maybe 10minutes. To hear the mower start and run was very satisfying!