How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[wheels]

@ WHEELS ,,
You have proposed a wonderful alteration for scrubber placement just after reflux ...as you said one needs heating again .

Yes just after the Reflux would be a great place for it, but as you state, we have to reheat the Oil again. That requires more energy and slightly more complexity, but it would result in a clean Acid free Oil to then continue processing. Which could be run back through the process in a Clean Reactor Vessel. A bypass could be installed that would then allow the Cleaning tower to be switched out of the flow and you then allow the Oil to continue on the Normal path.
You have to weigh up if the extra Energy required would make it worth while.

[wheels]

I feel I need to clarify or at least restate a very important point.

Please realize and Remember that I am disposing of Ewaste as the primary goal.

That is the ONLY reason I have to melt PVC. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
As stated by others, the use of PET and PVC is fraught with difficulties and dangers. But most importantly, neither give up any worthwhile amounts of Liquid Hydrocarbons. Most of any Burnable product released is Gas. So unless you want Gas for heating, it simply is not worth the energy you put into melting these Plastics. Should you want the Gas, you also then have to weigh up the difficulties of dealing with the Toxic and Dangerous outputs.
In a Nutshell, neither are worth the effort.

[fox32]

I feel I need to clarify or at least restate a very important point.

Please realize and Remember that I am disposing of Ewaste as the primary goal.

That is the ONLY reason I have to melt PVC. Otherwise I wouldn't bother with it.
As stated by others, the use of PET and PVC is fraught with difficulties and dangers. But most importantly, neither give up any worthwhile amounts of Liquid Hydrocarbons. Most of any Burnable product released is Gas. So unless you want Gas for heating, it simply is not worth the energy you put into melting these Plastics. Should you want the Gas, you also then have to weigh up the difficulties of dealing with the Toxic and Dangerous outputs.
In a Nutshell, neither are worth the effort.

Nice ideas Wheels, i see you dispose of ewaste, you are also colecting,proccesing the gold from pc waste? I am asking because i also tried that and ran into some problems with aqua regia and precipitatin it.

Some pictures of your setup would be nice!

Keep up the good work!

[David007]

i put only hydrogen

wheels, i sorry but n4H2 , n -NO NITROGEN, n= is variable number in chimic equation (on chimia small letter non present element chimic)

i can put inside of Reactor Vessel only hydrogen, from hho generator.

anyway you can see this sample::

C10H8O4+ 4H2= C10H8+4H2O + more of 100 °C ^^^ vaporize


thanks to correct my message

[Beyond Biodiesel]

BeyondBeyodiesel, i am not familliar with this substance called TCE, is there any way to identify it in the feedstock, prior to using it? Also, wouldn't the copper from your condenser affect the quality of the diesel, or are you filtering it after?

TCE = Trichloroethylene

BBD, this is where things start getting very complex, but makes for some very exciting/interesting discussion...
The question for me right now, is that now I am interested in Fuels, where do I now place that scrubber, with the view that the water mix will greatly cool down oils/gasses and then stop them distilling to there respective take off point and so that hydrocarbon mix would need reheating again.
Currently I am still using the scrubber at the end stage for convenience, but will test different positions once the machine is back in operation.

I have been spending the last few days making a prototype Fractionating tower for separating the Fuels.

Especially for the small-scale DIY hydrocarbon cracker I find placing the bubbler/scrubber immediately after the retort full of problems. I believe the bubbler and/or scrubber belong after the final condenser, so that none of the condensate is contaminated with water, and therefore makes cracking and fractionating hydrocarbons much simpler for the DIY enthusiast.

[ndsunil]

Yes just after the Reflux would be a great place for it, but as you state, we have to reheat the Oil again. That requires more energy and slightly more complexity, but it would result in a clean Acid free Oil to then continue processing. Which could be run back through the process in a Clean Reactor Vessel. A bypass could be installed that would then allow the Cleaning tower to be switched out of the flow and you then allow the Oil to continue on the Normal path.
You have to weigh up if the extra Energy required would make it worth while.

One can design reflux with scrubber

[wheels]

Nice ideas Wheels, i see you dispose of ewaste, you are also colecting,proccesing the gold from pc waste? I am asking because i also tried that and ran into some problems with aqua regia and precipitatin it.

Some pictures of your setup would be nice!

Keep up the good work!

I will have some pics available soon.

We don't recover Gold etc ourselves, although have often thought about playing with that process just for giggles. All the PCB's are sent away where they are processed in huge Bulk. I think they get NZ 18cents/Kg for a circuit board, of which they recover Aluminium, Copper, Brass, Palladium, Silver and Gold. People have this idea that there is a lot of Gold to be had and will get rich, but the amount of precious metals in modern day electronics is so small it is not worth the effort unless you are processing huge quantities by machine.
That needs to be said about Plastic to Oil processing also. There is no great money to be made. At best, you need to be getting waste Plastic Free. Your Energy needs to be free or really cheap. You have to consider your time. If you have no work, then that is a different story, but if you did have a job, then you are better off putting more time into your work effort than trying to make fuels.
By the very simple and unbreakable laws of Physics, You can not get something for nothing. It takes energy to produce energy. In the case of Pyrolysis, the Heat energy going into melting the plastic will always be more than the energy you get back out. Even if the process was 100% effiecient, meaning the Heat energy in = the energy out, you have to factor in the cost of materials for machine and the cost if any of obtaining the plastic, the cost of transporting plastic, and any chemicals/catalysts/filter materials etc etc.
However, pyrolysis is not 100% efficient. Far from it in fact. It has an efficiency of about 20%. So if work out the amount of energy that you put into the process, add in the additional costs of products, assuming no cost for time or plastics, measure that energy in as Joules of energy, the potential energy out, locked up in Fuels/Gas, measured in Joules, will add up to about 20% of that energy input.
Then you have the risks associated with running the unrefined fuels in a vehicle. You may get away with a Vehicle running just fine for many years. But others have found that they have problems, or worse they have caused engine Damage and an expensive bill. If you ever intend to become big enough to make fuel for sale, then you need to ensure a very high level of Fuel quality and be prepared to fight in Court should someones Engine ever fail, because no matter what the real cause was, they are going to blame the first easy thing to point a finer at.
Just for instance, there are currently 9 Lawsuits against Oil Additive Companies in the USA right now.

[wheels]

One can design reflux with scrubber

The two would have to be separate. The reflux requires Heat close to the Heat of the Main reactor Vessel. In Large scale Refineries, in the Fractionating tower Water is heated to 460degC at the Bottom, but to do that you need huge pressure, like 1000PSI.

[Col]

reduction of acids

The question for me right now, is where do I now place that scrubber, with the view that the water mix will greatly cool down oils/gasses and then stop them distilling to there respective take off point and so that hydrocarbon mix would need reheating again.

Hi Wheels

What is the advantage of putting the scrubber / zeolite filter after the reflux? Could we avoid the cooling and re-heating of the vapour stream by keeping this process at the end? You could have as many scrubbers / zeolite filters as you have types of extracted fuel. After the diesel condenser you could pump the diesel and the sodium hydroxide through atomising injectors into a mixing chamber. Both liquids are in mist form and can emulsify to allow a complete reaction. A fuel sample can be taken and tested for acidification using IMBD's simple titration test. Once the fuel is known to not be acidic the water can be separated from the fuel by heat (90C is enough to displace the bulk of the water) and gravity, then by boiling to 120C to evaporate the remaining water, or some people may prefer a centrifuge. There are also those water absorbing beads / crystals that could take out the residue of the water. Does anyone know how effective these beads / crystals or corn starch filters are at removing trace amounts of water? I expect the zeolite will work just fine mixed into the liquid in powder form, then extracted afterwards, though clay can be difficult to filter out of water, is it difficult to filter out of fuel? This is duplicated for the kerosene and naptha fractions, and the bubbler remains at the gas exit too.

With a scrubber at the end rather than in the middle we don't have to heat back up to 380C again, maybe just 120C.

Comments anyone?

Col

[David007]

transparent tower distlation crde oil

Crude Oil Distillation - YouTube

you can see all rellay process, in side of tower start abou 3: 17 min.

i build my retor abot 75 liter, iron 6 mm !

i like too too build, reflux but i not clear.... what have inside of it?
Stainless Steel potscrube= sphere????
what is diameter???
and glass sphere??
in the 1028 message us pumice stones in reflux tower + catalyst
what is the dimension of pumice stones? is all block, or small pieces?

[Excalibur]

There are also those water absorbing beads / crystals that could take out the residue of the water. Does anyone know how effective these beads / crystals or corn starch filters are at removing trace amounts of water?

With a scrubber at the end rather than in the middle we don't have to heat back up to 380C again, maybe just 120C.

I wrote an article about DIY water absorbing crystals. I'd tested them some time ago on vege oil with good results. See DIYDiesel blog on test equipment page.

Crude Oil Distillation - YouTube

you can see all rellay process, in side of tower start abou 3: 17 min.

i build my retor abot 75 liter, iron 6 mm !

i like too too build, reflux but i not clear.... what have inside of it?
Stainless Steel potscrube= sphere????
what is diameter???
and glass sphere??
in the 1028 message us pumice stones in reflux tower + catalyst
what is the dimension of pumice stones? is all block, or small pieces?

Good video, recommended.
Reflux area about 20% ~ 25% the size of retort.
I'm going to retest terracotta broken clay pots next run as catalyst. I used this earlier on with good results. Re piece size, I'd say whatever gives best exposed area so small but still able to be contained.

[ndsunil]

The two would have to be separate. The reflux requires Heat close to the Heat of the Main reactor Vessel. In Large scale Refineries, in the Fractionating tower Water is heated to 460degC at the Bottom, but to do that you need huge pressure, like 1000PSI.

@ WHEEL ,If we design the dry scrubber inside the retort , will it serve the purpose ?

[wheels]

"I wrote an article about DIY water absorbing crystals. I'd tested them some time ago on vege oil with good results. See DIYDiesel blog on test equipment page."
25yrs ago, I was selling a product in NZ called Fuel-Dri. It was what is now found as those crystals they use in Pot Plants to absorb and release water. The product was a much finer crystal and sealed in a Plastic Gauze, which was then placed in a plastic unit that had holes all over it. We had sizes from small enough for motor bike size tanks, Cars, Trucks and right up to underground storage tanks. the Crystals would absorb any water that settled to the bottom of the tank.
However, it did not absorb water that was suspended in fuels. The water had to settle out first and drop to the bottom of the Tank. Diesel was a difficult one to absorb water out of, due to the oil content insulating the crystal surface. It did work, just much slower.

[wheels]

@ WHEEL ,If we design the dry scrubber inside the retort , will it serve the purpose ?

i am not sure what you mean by "Dry Scrubber".
But anyway, No.
We need as much room in the retort as we can get for plastic. We don't have the luxury of having huge Retorts. I think it is better to keep each process separate as it only adds to complications in the Retort along with difficulty in cleaning at the end of a run.

[wheels]

I'm going to retest terracotta broken clay pots next run as catalyst. I used this earlier on with good results. Re piece size, I'd say whatever gives best exposed area so small but still able to be contained.

Make a note of which Pots you use. Terracotta is not a "same the world over" material. So you will find some may work better than others, depending on which country and where in that country it came from. The main catalyzing component in Terracotta is Aluminium oxide. The problem with Terracotta is that the pores or capillaries are very fine and so they will block easily and lose it's effectiveness quickly.
Pumice is a good catalyst also. Once again it is Aluminium oxide, but the material is far more "open" allowing the more of the heavy gasses to have contact with the surface.
Zeolite is a good catalyst and one particular type works like a super catalyst. but difficult to find. Basically, Zeolites have many different Chemicals in their make up and all work together as Hydrocarbon cracker by chemical reaction of the Bronsteds Lewis Acid/Base reaction. Basically the Acids provide a proton to the hydrocarbon and that releases a part of that chain. The Proton is gained back by the Base and donated back to the Acid to reform it, thus regenerating. Apart from the problem of the Carbon blocking up the fine pores of the Zeolite and stopping it from working, much like Terracotta.