How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[mercedes 308]

Am just a freshman who is a grand daddy living in the Dark Continent.
I want to develop this project to alleviate the rampant pollution of the entire continent by plastics imported from other continents.

I have dreams of starting on a scale of say 200 liters a day.
I am thinking about mixing shredded plastics with waste oil and scrap metal filings.

This is a bid to facilitate transfer of materials and heat in the apparatus.
The metal filings are heated by an induction heater and they in turn heat the mix right inside: very efficiently. The filings, perhaps even steel balls are recycled.

Of course the tank will be entirely of non-conductive but hard, dense ceramic material: a zirconia or alumina pipe will be sufficient as the mixture flows through it to a chamber where it expands and evaporates.

The induction heating coil surrounds the pipe and heats the oil-and- plastic mixture to cracking temperatures. The temperature in this case can easily be controlled by appropriate switching of the high frequency inverter of the induction heater.

Such a system will be highly efficient and produce much cleaner fuel - I think.

It does not look complicated at least in my head.

Who's gonna try something like that with me?

Somebody, say something!

Looks like an interesting project, what size coil will you use.?
And what sort voltage?

[Stewart]

Oxygen free environment

If I had read page three of the forum I would have know the answer!
Do you introduce a compressed gas into the reactor to evacuate the Oxygen? Perhaps Carbon Dioxide? If you do, what would be the control?
I have seen schematics for more elaborate systems and they all include compressed gas added to the system, to evacuate the Oxygen, I think that this is because of the feeder system that they employ.
From your explanations so far I am thinking that the initial melt in the reactor evacuates the O2. http://www.energeticforum.com/images/smilies/wall.gif

[drmattfombong]

Hi Mercedez 308,

Your Questions:
[I]Looks like an interesting project, what size coil will you use?
[2]And what sort voltage?

My answers:

[1]The idea is to make the process continuous. Thus, the size of the equipment will be reduced compared to the batch equipment. Feeding into the reaction vessel may not necessarily be done by an auger, pumps with valves may be successfully employed. Nor does the reaction vessel need to be ceramic: metallic vessels can also be heated by high frequency currents. Such heating will be external and require internal stirring of the reactor. So you see that at our visualization state, we cannot pin down any sizes. We have to try out with what we have; observe the output and then scale up or down accordingly.

[2]Our voltages are international: 220-240V single phase, 50Hz or 380-440V three phase, 50Hz. It is rather sad that America decides to be the world's odd man-out with its eccentric units and standards. This is one reason America is falling behind in manufacturing and exports.

Regards

[mercedes 308]

Hi Mercedez 308,

Your Questions:
[I]Looks like an interesting project, what size coil will you use?
[2]And what sort voltage?

My answers:

[1]The idea is to make the process continuous. Thus, the size of the equipment will be reduced compared to the batch equipment. Feeding into the reaction vessel may not necessarily be done by an auger, pumps with valves may be successfully employed. Nor does the reaction vessel need to be ceramic: metallic vessels can also be heated by high frequency currents. Such heating will be external and require internal stirring of the reactor. So you see that at our visualization state, we cannot pin down any sizes. We have to try out with what we have; observe the output and then scale up or down accordingly.

[2]Our voltages are international: 220-240V single phase, 50Hz or 380-440V three phase, 50Hz. It is rather sad that America decides to be the world's odd man-out with its eccentric units and standards. This is one reason America is falling behind in manufacturing and exports.

Regards

2" 50 mm seems a good place to start. Possibly vertically fed, with a tee piece at the top to take away gas.
seems you have a interesting project. Will definitely watch, good luck

[Punkinhaidmartin]

A few things that come to mind

Anybody interested in a continuous process instead of a batch based process?
Using an auger to melt and inject the polymer into a reactor would increase output and decrease the size of the reactor vessel.

[Punkinhaidmartin]

A Few things come to mind

I guess I should pay more attention.

[dutchdivco]

Perhaps

In ALL forums, and ALL threads, there should be (at the risk of 'shoulding' on anyone) a rule or guideline that says BEFORE posting, read the thread from the beginning, to see if your question or idea has already been covered.

It ALSO 'should' be 'understood' that EVERY post, from anyone, comes with a built in disclaimer; "This is just MY 'opinion'; and opinions are like *ssholes; everyone HAS one, and most ALL of us, (at one time or another), ARE one."

Speaking for myself, I KNOW there are times when I've acted or reacted in a very *sshole like way, and only realised it AFTER the fact,...;-( Hey, its just part of the human condition!

Anyway, no harm, no foul. Jim

[City Smith]

Wowzers

Hi, I am doing a project on reducing wastage of not fully utilizing plastic bags. How long did you make this converter?

[mercedes 308]

"O2 sensors" like the ones used on autos, in the exhaust, don't actually measure oxygen; they measure temperature, and can go up to 1000 degreesF. I'm just thinking that may be what he was referring to? Jim

Actually they do measure the oxygen content. One of there uses is to measure oxygen levels for divers, not much heat there.

They measure resistance changes across the platinum, due to oxygen reacting with it.

@Asad Farooqui The reason new cars don't run well on some diesels is because of the common rail system.
A primary pump in the tank feeds fuel to a high pressure pump, it then charges a common rail, that all the injectors feed from.
These injectors have a finer nozzle than ordinary injectors.
They are pulsed electrically by the CPU, this is why new cars have better mpg.

Ever thought of building a oil/plastic recycling plant in a steel shipping container ?, using the container as a frame (ease of shipping, drop on site, start and go recycling). you could even cut a hatch at one end, that folds out to form a loading chute.

[drmattfombong]

[mercedes 308]

I'm waiting for the day, I can park the Delorean up and fill up with waste like
Dr. Emmett Brown

But I'd settle for a12v pyrolysis chamber heated by induction coils and an inverter.

[kalaboxs]

Sveiks Jetij!

Kā nopratu pie 400 grādiem pirmreizeejais ir kaut kas liidziigs diizelim, ja?
Ja es veelos dabuut benziinu?
Kas un kaa ir jaakarsee?
P.S Vai obligaati ir nepieciesams elektriskais deglis?
Varbuut var to pashu benziina degli, piem. kaadreiz svilinaaja cuukas artaadu degli.. ?

Gaidiishu atbildi.

[Jetijs]

[mercedes 308]

Is a cyclonic filter more efficient before or after a catalytic chamber ?

[TeemuT]

Melting tires

Thank you for very inspiring thread. It took a while to read everything but it was totally worth of it.

I have given a thought for this non stop for a week. My target would be making oil from tires when everything is tuned. I had a thought how to handle tire melting. I would make separate unit which would contain some oil which have higher evaporating point than where tires melt. So eventually tires should melt and I would have liquids in two layers + steel sinks in the bottom.

Then the liquid tire soup would be transferred to actual distilling unit. I have no problems with generated carbon and steel waste.

Would this work? I mostly need oil to heat house and carbon can be used for heating green house.