How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[sunilkm153]

This is what I do. My Plant is used to dispose of toxic plastics.
Bromine is NOT left behind in the Carbon waste. Or not all of it that is. The vast majority passes through with the Fuel.
In saying that, how do you clean, handle and dispose of the Carbon waste? It is deadly toxic and highly carcinogenic. Even if you only process PP and PE, it is still a serious Hazard. WMO is worse than PP and PE and also needs serious consideration when cleaning.
There is a very big difference between doing this for real in a commercial plant and doing this as an experiment in a Lab. If it was not for the dangers and damage it can cause to Plant, many Commercial Fuel producing plants would be using these plastics. Many around the World are struggling to get enough Plastic and having another plastic type they can use would be a huge advantage to them.

I m doing this on commercial basis Almost 99% of halogen is get trapped in residual char I have x ray diffraction & chromatography reports for the same
see v th column of the report for content of oil we produce and the carbon produced is going to safely incinerate in furnace of cement manufacturing plant where temperature is about 1600 degree centigrade and chimney is about 100 mtr high

[wheels]

I m doing this on commercial basis Almost 99% of halogen is get trapped in residual char I have x ray diffraction & chromatography reports for the same
see v th column of the report for content of oil we produce and the carbon produced is going to safely incinerate in furnace of cement manufacturing plant where temperature is about 1600 degree centigrade and chimney is about 100 mtr high

So of those 5 samples tested, which sample relates to what point in your process?

[sunilkm153]

So of those 5 samples tested, which sample relates to what point in your process?

1 st one is simple thermal pyrolysis 2nd one with 1 st stage of my catalyst , 3 rd & 4 th are with zeolite of different particle size in case of zeolite bromine content is less in oil but higher in uncondensed gas and the last one that is 5 th sample is pyrolysed with my finally improved proprietary catalyst here bromine content in oil as well as gas is negligible and the same unconednsed gas is totally got burnt to heat the process (sorry due to commercial obligation I can not divulge its name this time because to get it I spend a hefty sum of money as well as lot of time )

[wheels]

1 st one is simple thermal pyrolysis 2nd one with 1 st stage of my catalyst , 3 rd & 4 th are with zeolite of different particle size in case of zeolite bromine content is less in oil but higher in uncondensed gas and the last one that is 5 th sample is pyrolysed with my finally improved proprietary catalyst here bromine content in oil as well as gas is negligible and the same uncondensed gas is totally got burnt to heat the process (sorry due to commercial obligation I can not divulge its name this time because to get it I spend a hefty sum of money as well as lot of time )

Do you know what 3-bromopentane and 2-bromo-2-methylpropane is?

Apart from that, I cannot understand why these are not picked up in the first samples, but are present in the last.

[sunilkm153]

Do you know what 3-bromopentane and 2-bromo-2-methylpropane is?

Apart from that, I cannot understand why these are not picked up in the first samples, but are present in the last.

3-bromopantane and 2-bromo-2-methylpropane are not present in the sample test no. 5 (bottam line of test report clearly shows nd means not detected / not present and empty circle means present / detected ) if these two are not present in oil why should I bother about them

[wheels]

3-bromopantane and 2-bromo-2-methylpropane are not present in the sample test no. 5 (bottam line of test report clearly shows nd means not detected / not present and empty circle means present / detected ) if these two are not present in oil why should I bother about them

Arr, i see. Sorry my mistake and I apologize. I didn't understand what the empty circles and the "nd" represented.

By the way, we here in NZ are not allowed Benzene. It has been banned from use in fuel for many years. I don't know about other countries and your country may allow it.

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Pyrolysis plant fires

Motor-oil drums explode in huge industrial fire south of downtown Phoenix

[sunilkm153]

Arr, i see. Sorry my mistake and I apologize. I didn't understand what the empty circles and the "nd" represented.

By the way, we here in NZ are not allowed Benzene. It has been banned from use in fuel for many years. I don't know about other countries and your country may allow it.

In my country INDIA here also only 1% of benzene is allowed till 2016 then no benzene will be allowed But this plastic pyrolysis oil we cant sell it as automobile fuel but we sell it to industries as generator fuel or fuel to heat furnace

[mindxploration]

Reflux tower is finally put together. 28" column with dual filter plates and high pressure clamps. Weighs 26lbs without packing or the 1/2" sintered 316l plate I plan to use on top of the filter plates which should double as flame arrestors. I will use sintered plates with my pressure relief valves as well. Also ordered header wrap and 2" ceramic insulation for the column but plan on testing to see where temps are before I insulate. I see Im a few pages behind on reading since I have been finishing my build.

[Excalibur]

Reflux tower is finally put together. 28" column with dual filter plates and high pressure clamps. Weighs 26lbs without packing or the 1/2" sintered 316l plate I plan to use on top of the filter plates which should double as flame arrestors. I will use sintered plates with my pressure relief valves as well. Also ordered header wrap and 2" ceramic insulation for the column but plan on testing to see where temps are before I insulate. I see Im a few pages behind on reading since I have been finishing my build.

Very nice work! I'm excited for you..

[Excalibur]

More thoughts:
Good idea to test temperatures before insulating. It's likely that there'll be a good deal of radiant heat losses but step by step is the way to go. Getting the right balance of applied heat and insulation is something that each builder needs to experiment with to discover.
The ability to control both retort and reflux temperatures independently is important. From this perspective, adding/removing insulation layers in the same way we would put on or take off a sweater would be a good way to influence the reflux temperature target.
The retort just needs lots of insulation because if temps there climb too high, heat can simply be reduced.

[mindxploration]

Very much agreed. The fine tuning is in the reflux. Temperature control is key but so is sizing for flow rate and surface area of packing for proper reflux. That's one of the reasons I went with sanitary piping. Easy to add or subtract pipe length without a single weld. I'm not a welder so my whole refinery is off the shelf parts and available basically world wide through the Internet, mainly ebay. I'm using industrial parts for all aspects. Just waiting for the 33 gallon 83lb 316l pressure tank I'm using as a retort to arrive. Its certified to 90psi at 300f. Once I fine tune my system I will release parts list required to build.

[mindxploration]

One area that I had a hard time finding information to properly build was the retort pressure guage. In order to safely and properly read vacuum and pressure in these conditions several items are needed.
Pressure snubber - A pressure gauge snubber is a device used to suppress ("snub") excess force or rapid movement in mechanical systems. Pressure snubbers are designed to dampen the effect of pressure pulses and spikes to assure longer service life and readability of pressure gauges in harsh applications. For plastic pyrolysis a piston snubber with a D or E piston for light and heavy oil.
Diaphragm seal - diaphragm seal is a flexible membrane that seals and isolates an enclosure. The flexible nature of this seal allows pressure effects to cross the barrier but not the material being contained. Common uses for diaphragm seals are to protect pressure sensors from the fluid whose pressure is being measured. For my application I used 316l diaphragm and mineral oil for fill fluid between diaphragm and guage.
Finned cooling element - reduces process media temperature before reaching pressure guage

In order to use the diaphragm seal properly a seal fluid is used between diaphragm and guage that is non compressible. This allows for vacuum and pressure fluctuations to occur without damage to guage during spikes. This also separates the guage from directly measuring process media while protecting the guage. Mineral oil works well

[mindxploration]

Retort and reflux column together. Awaiting on couple fittings before water testing. Column is 6" round at base and ends up at 3" after adapters and filter plates. The 3 connections off tank around reflux column are pressure guage, temperature guage and 75 psi blow off valve with sintered fire arrestor. My pressure guage only goes to 15Psi , if I hit that I wanna be far far away before blow off valve goes.

[Excalibur]

Retort and reflux column together. Awaiting on couple fittings before water testing. Column is 6" round at base and ends up at 3" after adapters and filter plates. The 3 connections off tank around reflux column are pressure guage, temperature guage and 75 psi blow off valve with sintered fire arrestor. My pressure guage only goes to 15Psi , if I hit that I wanna be far far away before blow off valve goes.

The gauge should read no pressure throughout. Even the bubbler won't exert enough back pressure to register anything. If you have valving anywhere on the vapor stream, it should be locked in the open position. Use some sort of failsafe procedure so you can't accidentally startup with said valve closed.