How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[otpadnoulje]

However, it is also worth keeping in mind that the bubble water must be exchanged regularly, because bubbling chlorine gas through water will make hydrochloric acid.

Did you PH test the bubbled water?

The uncondensed fumes must be burn off!

[thissideup]

H2s is far from mildly toxic, anything above 15 ppm is not safe to be around, at 20 ppm you're guaranteed a splitting head ache, 100 ppm and you can kiss your ass good bye, instantly. if you are certain that it is h2s you are smelling ( smell of rotten eggs ) then you can scrub your gas with ammonia, that's what we use on our tankers when loading sour oil.

Thanks folks for the comments and suggestions.

I think in this case you do not have enough trapping, packing and cooling to condense your light fractions. I found if you want gasoline then it is going to take an ice trap, and kerosene requires a water condenser, otherwise you are throwing away perfectly good fuel.

I had not thought of Modern synthetic oils as a source for this clearly chlorine-based toxic fume. I did find that running it through 40 feet of hose and another filter that the offensive fumes were still very strong, so I know it is not the lack of condensing my fluid stream.

Yesterday I got very dizzy for hours after the run, and I felt miserable all night. So, this morning I drained the offensive source waste oil out of my retort, and put fresh WMO in, then I ran the unit up to 800F (426c). I did notice traces of the offensive smell from yesterday, but I think it was just coming from traces of the original waste oil left my distillation unit.

Running the exhaust 40 feet away, and bubbling it in water all, and adding a fan near the unit, I am sure helped.

I am familiar with H2S (Hydrogen Sulfide), while Hydrogen Sulfide is an expected release from distilling petroleum distillates, and it is mildly toxic, compared to chlorine gas, it was definitely not what my distillation unit was emitting for the last 2 days, which was making me sick.

While I was against the bubbler in the beginning, I am now a staunch supporter of using it, for one major reason, that is chlorine gas and related compounds are hyrdofilic, which means they have a strong attraction to water, so running the exhaust through a bubbler means that any chlorine gas released during pyrolysis and distillation is likely to be absorbed by the water.

However, it is also worth keeping in mind that the bubble water must be exchanged regularly, because bubbling chlorine gas through water will make hydrochloric acid. So, I ran the water from my water jacketed cooling lines to a bucket where put the end of the exhaust line Here is a pic.

[Asad Farooqui]

Syn-Gas purifier

H2s is far from mildly toxic, anything above 15 ppm is not safe to be around, at 20 ppm you're guaranteed a splitting head ache, 100 ppm and you can kiss your ass good bye, instantly. if you are certain that it is h2s you are smelling ( smell of rotten eggs ) then you can scrub your gas with ammonia, that's what we use on our tankers when loading sour oil.

Hello Thissideup ;
WMO when pyrolysed gives about 5% C1--C4 which will remain in Gas form .
It is a standard practice to incorporate Gas-processors/purifiers in commercial Pyrolysis systems .
Anybody not incorporating it will be MESSING with his health & Neighbours.

Beyond Biodiesel be careful in designing your system ...

Nowadays Iam building a 2000-kg/day continuous running plant in which Syn-Gas purification system is a MUST . After gas processing it is fed in the Blower-furnace .
We expect that the Syn-gas once started producing will be sufficient to Run the furnace .

[Beyond Biodiesel]

The WMO distillation runs above 550F (287c) continue to produce chlorine compounds. My ice trap has also been collecting a turquoise liquid, which I believe is HCL dissolving copper out of my copper condenser above this collection point.

I also added a pleated cellulose filter after my last condenser trap to filter out anything else in the exhaust stream. However, something in that exhaust stream deteriorated the seals on the pleated cellulose filter

[kaguar]

Check it on Wikipedia. H2S is a devil of its sort. The main issue is that at high concentrations you cant smell it (rotten eggs). If the characteristic odor is present it means you`ve got it at about safe concentration but very unpleasant. A simple bubbler will remove only a small portion of it from the stream.

[thissideup]

Check it on Wikipedia. H2S is a devil of its sort. The main issue is that at high concentrations you cant smell it (rotten eggs). If the characteristic odor is present it means you`ve got it at about safe concentration but very unpleasant. A simple bubbler will remove only a small portion of it from the stream.

An ammonia bubbler will remove virtually all H2S from the gas stream, We load oil that is 1%, that's 1000 ppm, far in excess of safe level, when is then vented must be safe to inhale, as we are loading in plant sites where others are working. it's recommended that you use some sort of baffle or packing to break up the bubbles and increase the ammonia to h2s interaction. On out trucks we have a tank, some square, some round, with baffles so the gas has to weave through and spend more time immersed in ammonia. Tank is usually about 55 gal in size and we vent in at about 500 -1000 litres per minute.

[jonathan]

gases

l was reading here and some of you are speaking about danger gases like h2s and others can you burn that gases to solve the proplem? because around the world there are plastic cracker they all say ist clean for ambient and health and they burn gases is the furnace thanks

[kaguar]

When cracking clean PE/PP you normally don`t get any H2S or just negligible amounts. I was talking here about WMO cracking.

[imakebiodiesel]

Im no chemist but as far as I know copper and HCl dont react so I think the blue colour is caused by something else. It may be sulphur in the form of H2SO4 or H2S reacting with copper to form copper sulphate. I got this effect when I tried using Talc as a catalyst. I got liquid fuel of the most beautiful deep blue colour.
Your experience with the smell suggests Chlorine but the blue colour suggests H2S. Set up a simple ammonia bubbler to eliminate H2S and see if the smell disappears.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Check it on Wikipedia. H2S is a devil of its sort. The main issue is that at high concentrations you cant smell it (rotten eggs). If the characteristic odor is present it means you`ve got it at about safe concentration but very unpleasant. A simple bubbler will remove only a small portion of it from the stream.

I am well aware of the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide gas, and I do smell H2S; however, that is normal for petroleum refining. This smell is sharp, and chlorine-like.

An ammonia bubbler will remove virtually all H2S from the gas stream, We load oil that is 1%, that's 1000 ppm, far in excess of safe level, when is then vented must be safe to inhale, as we are loading in plant sites where others are working. it's recommended that you use some sort of baffle or packing to break up the bubbles and increase the ammonia to h2s interaction. On out trucks we have a tank, some square, some round, with baffles so the gas has to weave through and spend more time immersed in ammonia. Tank is usually about 55 gal in size and we vent in at about 500 -1000 litres per minute.

Adding ammonia to the bubbler is an excellent idea; however, just running my exhaust stream through a plain water bubbler has completely removed the stinging chlorine smell from my exhaust stream.

l was reading here and some of you are speaking about danger gases like h2s and others can you burn that gases to solve the proplem? because around the world there are plastic cracker they all say ist clean for ambient and health and they burn gases is the furnace thanks

The take-home message here is, cracking and/or distilling plastics, rubber, and/or waste oils has hazards; one of which is the potential for flammable, toxic and/or corrosive emissions. It is all too easy to trap, condense, filter, dilute, and/or consume these potentially flammable, toxic and/or corrosive emissions. It is the responsibility of the pyrolysis/ distillation uni designer, operator to mitigate these potentially flammable, toxic and/or corrosive emissions. I do not; however, believe that just sending the exhaust stream into a flame is the best solution.

Im no chemist but as far as I know copper and HCl dont react so I think the blue colour is caused by something else. It may be sulphur in the form of H2SO4 or H2S reacting with copper to form copper sulphate. I got this effect when I tried using Talc as a catalyst. I got liquid fuel of the most beautiful deep blue colour.
Your experience with the smell suggests Chlorine but the blue colour suggests H2S. Set up a simple ammonia bubbler to eliminate H2S and see if the smell disappears.

Well, it is possible that I have multiple acids being produced in my WMO distillation unit. So, far the simple water bubbler has eliminated all of the smells from my exhaust stream. However, I am sure there is a fair amount of flammable gasses in that stream that could/should be consumed with a flame.

[otpadnoulje]

Beyond Biodiesel

Did you test bubbled water pH value?

[otpadnoulje]

An ammonia bubbler will remove virtually all H2S from the gas stream, We load oil that is 1%, that's 1000 ppm, far in excess of safe level, when is then vented must be safe to inhale, as we are loading in plant sites where others are working. it's recommended that you use some sort of baffle or packing to break up the bubbles and increase the ammonia to h2s interaction. On out trucks we have a tank, some square, some round, with baffles so the gas has to weave through and spend more time immersed in ammonia. Tank is usually about 55 gal in size and we vent in at about 500 -1000 litres per minute.

Are you sure there is not any chlorine?
Mixing chlorine and ammonia is extremely dangerous, since toxic vapors will be produced.

[ndsunil]

I am well aware of the rotten egg smell of hydrogen sulfide gas, and I do smell H2S; however, that is normal for petroleum refining. This smell is sharp, and chlorine-like.

Adding ammonia to the bubbler is an excellent idea; however, just running my exhaust stream through a plain water bubbler has completely removed the stinging chlorine smell from my exhaust stream.

The take-home message here is, cracking and/or distilling plastics, rubber, and/or waste oils has hazards; one of which is the potential for flammable, toxic and/or corrosive emissions. It is all too easy to trap, condense, filter, dilute, and/or consume these potentially flammable, toxic and/or corrosive emissions. It is the responsibility of the pyrolysis/ distillation uni designer, operator to mitigate these potentially flammable, toxic and/or corrosive emissions. I do not; however, believe that just sending the exhaust stream into a flame is the best solution.

Well, it is possible that I have multiple acids being produced in my WMO distillation unit. So, far the simple water bubbler has eliminated all of the smells from my exhaust stream. However, I am sure there is a fair amount of flammable gasses in that stream that could/should be consumed with a flame.

What you said is absolutely correct . It is the responsibility of a designer to look in to the safety aspects of plant and near by .

[mrwoodgas]

Here a few pictures from my project.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Beyond Biodiesel

Did you test bubbled water pH value?

No, but I plan to as soon as the next disbursement of funding arrives. I am broke at present. I have saved all of the turquoise water for such a test.

Are you sure there is not any chlorine?
Mixing chlorine and ammonia is extremely dangerous, since toxic vapors will be produced.

Good to know. Just bubbling the exhaust gasses through water has completely eliminated the offensive smells.

What you said is absolutely correct . It is the responsibility of a designer to look in to the safety aspects of plant and near by .

Thanks, ndsunil.

Nice photos mrwoodgas. I look forward to reading how well it runs.