How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

Thanks for advising. I'd heard of it happening somewhere. The fact that a small amount has done this is surprising. Annoying to have to reprocess it though.

BB, I see the BB website has been down for some days. Is it temporary? Says: Maintenance Mode...

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Thanks for advising. I'd heard of it happening somewhere. The fact that a small amount has done this is surprising. Annoying to have to reprocess it though.

BB, I see the BB website has been down for some days. Is it temporary? Says: Maintenance Mode...

Hi Excalibur, yes the Beyond Biodiesel forum is down. I have sent my web host a request to fix it, but he might be on vacation. I am trying to fix it myself, but I have not had any success yet. I am also looking into alternatives.

Thanks for your concern.

[Excalibur]

All's quiet on the forum so I thought I'd mention there's a few updates to my blog re progress on the newest iteration of turk-retort. Various revised posts & pages show developments.

Much of the early experimental prototype articles have been condensed to the archive page.

Hope something there is of help.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Since my forum is still down, and this forum is quiet, then I thought I would report my recent experiments experiments with insulation for pyrolysis temperatures.

Yesterday I opened my kiln from a day-long firing to 800F to test some more firebricks and a piece of sheet rock, to see how they would fair.

My 50-50 ash-plaster+ sodium silicate bricks came out 100% good, and fairly light at 1lb 10oz (730gm), and they made it up to 400c.

The sheet rock failed.

[simonus]

Hi!

Hi everybody,

I'm new to this forum, just found out about it yesterday evening. I havent read all of the pages but I like the general idea.(how cool is it to make your own fuel!!)

I was at a military convention a few weeks ago and found out about this :

Blue Green Energy - Homepage

been talking to the guy there for about an hour and got really interrested but he wouldnt tell me anything about how the process works.
So I did some research and found out about pyrolysis and via google found this forum!

What i found out was that the system uses "fast pyrolysis", at 900 C and a fischer-tropsch like converter to make fuels like diesel or kerosine(the american army uses jp-8 kerosine but most of the european armies use diesel fuel) and it produces the same amount of distilled water. It can be fed by any type of waste(biomass, plastics or a combination) because it is shred really small.

I'm more interrested in the biomass converter personally, but you have to start somewhere and you guys have made awesome progress! I'll be reading up on all you have done in the next couple of days and then I'll try to design a machine of my own(prefferebly biomass fast pyrolysis).

I just want to say to all, awesome work and thinking.

keep it up!

Simonus

[mjohnson1]

Hi everybody,

I'm new to this forum, just found out about it yesterday evening. I havent read all of the pages but I like the general idea.(how cool is it to make your own fuel!!)

I was at a military convention a few weeks ago and found out about this :

Blue Green Energy - Homepage

been talking to the guy there for about an hour and got really interrested but he wouldnt tell me anything about how the process works.
So I did some research and found out about pyrolysis and via google found this forum!

What i found out was that the system uses "fast pyrolysis", at 900 C and a fischer-tropsch like converter to make fuels like diesel or kerosine(the american army uses jp-8 kerosine but most of the european armies use diesel fuel) and it produces the same amount of distilled water. It can be fed by any type of waste(biomass, plastics or a combination) because it is shred really small.

I'm more interrested in the biomass converter personally, but you have to start somewhere and you guys have made awesome progress! I'll be reading up on all you have done in the next couple of days and then I'll try to design a machine of my own(prefferebly biomass fast pyrolysis).

I just want to say to all, awesome work and thinking.

keep it up!

Simonus

I'm not sure why they run their process at 900C. For plastic pyrolysis I notice far more gases being produced as the temperature gets above 400C

In addition, it takes way more energy to get the retort up to that temperature and then maintain it. The insulation would need to be excellent and would be more expensive since fiberglass won't work well.

If they're running it that hot it sounds like they need to find a suitable catalyst.

[imakebiodiesel]

From the description they seem to be gasifying the plastic and then using a technique similar to the Fischer Trophsc process to turn the gas back into liquid. So much energy would be required to do this that it would yield very little if any fuel in the end. When the only illustrations are " artists impressions" I begin to smell a rat, or rather a scam.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

From the description they seem to be gasifying the plastic and then using a technique similar to the Fischer Trophsc process to turn the gas back into liquid. So much energy would be required to do this that it would yield very little if any fuel in the end. When the only illustrations are " artists impressions" I begin to smell a rat, or rather a scam.

I happen to agree. It looked like all media-hype to me to.

[lowriderzzz]

Organic waste to fuel ???

Do you know if there is a method/unit for converting organic waste (banana peel, aple leftovers, dead flowers and any other kind of fruit or plant organic waste ) into something usefull.

An year ago I started reading the forum I got to the half point but i dont remeber someone talking about it. Then I had to travel and I stopped following the thread, now I see that it doubled its pages. So if there is already a post regarding this please redirect.

Thank you.

[imakebiodiesel]

I ventured into pyrolysis of biomass last week.
I filled up my retort with animal fat, veg oil and sawdust. I heated it up to 400C and ran it for about 5 hours. I got about 20 litres of liquid bio oil and a lot of gas( 42 kg of feedstock) The gas burned bright blue just like propane. The bio oil is the most evil smelling fuel I have ever encountered. My eyes start to sting as soon as I open the container. It is black with a layer of watery sludge in the bottom. It has about the same viscosity as diesel.
The retort was still half full of tar when opened with the same acrid blinding smell. It was a horrible job to clean it out. Even my next batch of nice clean plastic was contaminated by it until about halfway through.
I believe that the horrible smell is propenal (acrolein) which is produced by the thermal decomposition of the glycerol content of oils and fats.
The yield was so low, the fuel so nasty and the residue so troublesome that I wont be trying that again.

[imakebiodiesel]

Lowriderzzz, Why do you want to turn organic waste into fuel? I make about half a ton of compost every year from organic waste from my home, my garden and my vegetable plot. Its worth more, both economically and environmentally, than half a ton of fuel and it doesnt cost a cent to make.

[lowriderzzz]

Lowriderzzz, Why do you want to turn organic waste into fuel? I make about half a ton of compost every year from organic waste from my home, my garden and my vegetable plot. Its worth more, both economically and environmentally, than half a ton of fuel and it doesnt cost a cent to make.

because im interested to make some unit/units that can convert all domestic waste. Having a zero waste household.

Anyway I have another concern. I was wondering what would be the most optimal way to ddesign a reactor so least possible heat escapes. In other word -how to construct the reactor so the maximum of the heat is being used and not dispersed?

Here on the picture i designed what I was thinking about. What do you think of it? How do you perceive it ? Do you know of more convenient ways to build optimat heat absobtion reactor ?



what about inner heating source - what is the best heater for inner heating and will it make enought temperature - 450 - 500c ??

[Excalibur]

because im interested to make some unit/units that can convert all domestic waste. Having a zero waste household.

Anyway I have another concern. I was wondering what would be the most optimal way to ddesign a reactor so least possible heat escapes. In other word -how to construct the reactor so the maximum of the heat is being used and not dispersed?

Here on the picture i designed what I was thinking about. What do you think of it? How do you perceive it ? Do you know of more convenient ways to build optimat heat absobtion reactor ?

It's good that you're giving some thought to efficiency. Getting maximum use out of the available heat you have is paramount.
Your dual heat source idea has some merit. Whatever heat the lower fire can't deliver, the heating coils will pick up the slack.
As far as design efficiency goes, I'd thought a tall slim retort might have the edge. Heat rises so the logical path is upward, through the rest of the retort vessel. Another thought was to maximize the surface area for the heat to latch onto. In other words give the flame heat a longer path, covering more surface area for this to happen.
I just finished updating my blog with my plans for heat recovery when I read your post...

[lowriderzzz]

It's good that you're giving some thought to efficiency. Getting maximum use out of the available heat you have is paramount.
Your dual heat source idea has some merit. Whatever heat the lower fire can't deliver, the heating coils will pick up the slack.
As far as design efficiency goes, I'd thought a tall slim retort might have the edge. Heat rises so the logical path is upward, through the rest of the retort vessel. Another thought was to maximize the surface area for the heat to latch onto. In other words give the flame heat a longer path, covering more surface area for this to happen.
I just finished updating my blog with my plans for heat recovery when I read your post...

For maximizing surface area you mean something like this:


this is what I came up with.


My idea was t use fire from leftover gases being burned back below the reactor and or add additional bottom heating source to heat the reactor to lets say 300 - 350c and use electric coils for only up heating to 400 - 500c. Also using a controler to maintain the desired temeperature.
This is with as less energy to create maximum efficienty.


By the way share a link for your blog please.

[Excalibur]

My idea was t use fire from leftover gases being burned back below the reactor and or add additional bottom heating source to heat the reactor to lets say 300 - 350c and use electric coils for only up heating to 400 - 500c. Also using a controler to maintain the desired temeperature.
This is with as less energy to create maximum efficienty.


By the way share a link for your blog please.

The blog address is permanently at the bottom of each of my posts. I re-paste it here Fuel from waste oil & plastic DIY if for some reason it's not been visible to you.

Using the waste gases from the retort is another idea I like. Whatever you can do maximize the heat transfer would be a good thing. I'm currently assembling my new turk-powered-retort where I hope to run on those gases alone. In trials with my last prototype, I ran for over half an hour on the gases alone at cracking temperature. The concept works but I may have to sacrifice some of the lighter fractions for heat production. Feel free to look over the blog and use any ideas you want. Hope it helps.