How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

Thanks Col.

Last run, I'd made a big step with eliminating smoke emissions from the burner. The gain was in a number of tweaks. The fuel for the injector pump that fires the burner was blended much thinner than before so when the fuel sprayed it instantly vaporized and burned. Unlike before when fuel was puddling, creating smoke. Because of this efficiency improvement, the burner housing was running red hot so ignition was no problem. The off-gases was another refinement and the moving of the gas feed nozzle to the door of the burner worked a treat. I ran one fuel circuit at a time only. The gases was the best for heat and quiet because there was no injector pump running.
So, yes a little smoke on initial starting up. Once up to temperature the air control was in a sweet spot and was barely touched. I had fitted a TC to the burner to read the flame temperature. It recorded up to 800°C.
As for automation, it doesn't appear to need it although it's only been one run with the tweaks. I thought perhaps an 02 sensor in the flue stack connected to one of my proposed alarm circuits. The stack top is out of sight of the air control so I wondered about fitting a mirror to view the emission or else a Bowden cable for remote adjustment.
Incidentally, my Arduino controlled servo isn't in use and has been discontinued.

Yes, it might be the case with the final stages for cracking. There can be lots of gas and I'd ideally like to store some so I can restart on it from cold. Just how well gas would store in a gasjar isn't known. Another thought was to compress some into a LPG cylinder.

Earlier you were asking about vacuum. I'd picked up a Thomas WOB-L piston pump which does vacuum. I think it pulls 27inch HG. The idea of vacuum has some appeal for possible energy savings and lower BP. I used it on 2 early experiments, neither was particularly successful. I'm sure it could be developed though.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

So the reflux serves both as a wetting surface for the heavier fractions to condense upon and separate from the lighter fractions, and as a contaminant removal, like a filter, to remove free-carbon which has been carried over from boil-over.

Yes and no. Boil-over is liquid plus vapors that carries particles of solids up in a boiler. The function of reflux is to allow the liquid to wet, as you said, and along with that wetting particles of solids in the boil-over are captured and both fall back down into the boiler. This allows only vapors to escape the reflux, this is why they reflux needs to be kept at the temperature of your first condenser, whatever that is.

With this in mind, as you might expect, the pad of stainless steel packing which I retrieved from the gas-liquid separator I cut open was fouled with crusty carbon-like material. The pad is 200mm thick by 800mm diameter, has been difficult to clean. Think I might have to separate the mesh into individual sheets to get a proper clean. I guess if we are using something cheaper we would need to just throw it away once the reflux efficiencies decline. And if we have chosen to use rusty iron in the reflux the surface of rust would be covered by carbon and need replenishing.
Col

There is no reason to clean this baffle in your reflux, but a baffle does not have to be thick. I can see it more like 800mm in diameter, if your reflux zone is 900mm in diameter, but it need only be 1-3mm thick. The baffle is not meant to have a great deal of thermal mass. It should be light, with almost no thermal mass, just a lot of surface area to pose as an obstacle to the movement of the flow of liquid containing particles of dirt, ash and carbon.

[jonathan]

pyrolysis fuel types

hellooooo l wish to know what fuel types can we get and @ what tempretures? l know from plastic we take diesel,kerosene,petrol.can we take more fuels types?..from waste oil we can take diesel,petrol..what about kerosene? or other fuels thanks

[Excalibur]

, this is why they reflux needs to be kept at the temperature of your first condenser, whatever that is.

With respect, this recommendation would not suit every set up. At this moment I think matching reflux and 1st condenser temperatures would be a situation where double distilling was required. This would have the benefit of making the fuel extra pure at the expense of requiring additional heat energy.
To illustrate, my reflux is targeted at 350°C while my 1st condenser is held at 80° ~ 120°C range. The reflux temperature dictates the heaviest fraction that is allowed to exit downstream while the 1st condenser temperature drives off only the most unwanted volatile fractions. So in this instance I want say 98% of condensate to stay trapped in the 1st condenser and 2% volatile balance to be shunted downstream.

hellooooo l wish to know what fuel types can we get and @ what tempretures? l know from plastic we take diesel,kerosene,petrol.can we take more fuels types?..from waste oil we can take diesel,petrol..what about kerosene? or other fuels thanks

Diesel, kerosene, petrol, naptha, LPG to name a few can be extracted from both waste oil or plastic. Think of these raw materials as being the same hydrocarbon with different carbon chain lengths.
diagram on this page with temperatures

[jonathan]

pyrolysis fuel types

thanks excalibur.....l am going to try my pyrolysis with waste oil l thing tempreture is lower to crack waste oil and heats more qiuckly then plastic..l ask for fuel types it is posiple to do whitespirit,methanol,etanol from waste oil and plastic? or maybe from wood? thanks

[Excalibur]

Using waste oil is an OK idea, especially when trying to iron out problems.

Yes for white spirits. The other two are alcohols, though extraction from petroleum is possible the process looks rather complicated. See "Synthetic Chemicals from Petroleum" section of Shell Petroleum Handbook for more info.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

thanks excalibur.....l am going to try my pyrolysis with waste oil l thing tempreture is lower to crack waste oil and heats more qiuckly then plastic..l ask for fuel types it is posiple to do whitespirit,methanol,etanol from waste oil and plastic? or maybe from wood? thanks

The differences between distilling waste oils and solvents; and cracking plastics; and extraction of volatiles from wood (wood-gas); and extraction of volatiles from coal; are all much the same process. Just bring your product up to 800F (425c), and run the vapors through a fractionation system/tower, and see what you have. Trying to get specific products is harder than learning to work with what you have extracted.

[jonathan]

pyrolysis fuel types

thanks excalibur and beyond biodiesel my proplem is that in malta is dificult to find insulation and when l find its very expensive l will try waste oil maybe its more easy then plastic to heat it to 425

[dedooo]

Please help, reactor his 30-liter gas cylinder Propane old around insulator wool thermal, and placed inside the 5 kg plastic, but the stove was a torch Propane, after an hour it seemed diesel drip for an hour, then slow down very, toll 3 liters of diesel, I am not satisfied with the the result because the output is very small, Is there a way to increase the output per hour, thank you

[piccolo chimico]

ciao dedooo il mio parere è che potresti avere un riscaldamento troppo lento quindi separare troppo le frazioni leggere a bassa temperatura e questo potrebbe spiegare anche il gocciolio a flebo. prova a dare potenza al tuo reattore.

[piccolo chimico]

usi catalizzatore?

[Excalibur]

thanks excalibur and beyond biodiesel my proplem is that in malta is dificult to find insulation and when l find its very expensive l will try waste oil maybe its more easy then plastic to heat it to 425

I suspect you need either better insulation or more heat or perhaps a combination of the two. Somehow you must achieve a carefully controlled boiling temperature to get good evaporation and maintain it. For cheap insulation, you need to get innovative. How about finding an old oven and recycle its' insulation or put your retort inside. Better than nothing would be to put the retort inside a larger drum so heat is trapped in the air gap.

Please help, reactor his 30-liter gas cylinder Propane old around insulator wool thermal, and placed inside the 5 kg plastic, but the stove was a torch Propane, after an hour it seemed diesel drip for an hour, then slow down very, toll 3 liters of diesel, I am not satisfied with the the result because the output is very small, Is there a way to increase the output per hour, thank you

To increase output, more than the 5kg needs to be processed at a time. A picture would help our understanding of your needs..

[jonathan]

pyrolysis fuel types

thanks its a good idea to find insulation from ovens but l need a lot. my pyrolysis take about 40 litres of oil. to fill about 3/4 of it l will try about 25 litres.l find on ehow that if you heat waste oil to 60 degrees you have petrol distillate.is this true? everyone say 425 to crack plastic or waste oil thanks



How to Distill Used Motor Oil for Diesel Fuel | eHow

[Excalibur]

Really, it's not that simple. A mixture of two different hydrocarbon fuels/oils will start boiling at a temperature somewhere between the boiling points of the two components, depending on their relative proportions in the mixture.
A quantity of waste oil should always be considered to have a variety of different components. It depends on what is thrown into the oil dumpster.
My retort has started producing fuel long before even 400°C. As I've said before, as much attention should be paid to the bubbler activity and sight glass drip rate as to the retort temperature.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

thanks excalibur and beyond biodiesel my proplem is that in malta is dificult to find insulation and when l find its very expensive l will try waste oil maybe its more easy then plastic to heat it to 425

thanks its a good idea to find insulation from ovens but l need a lot. my pyrolysis take about 40 litres of oil. to fill about 3/4 of it l will try about 25 litres.l find on ehow that if you heat waste oil to 60 degrees you have petrol distillate.is this true? everyone say 425 to crack plastic or waste oil thanks

Plastic pyrolysis yield much less than WMO distillation, because plastic is mostly air between the particles. so that 5 gallons (20L) of WMO yields very close to 5 gallons (20L) distilled fuel; whereas, 55 gallons (220L) of plastic yields about 5 gallons (20L) distilled fuel.

Note on insulation:
Adobe makes a perfectly useful high temperature insulation. Also, volcanic ash works very well also as good high temperature insulation.