How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

Hi Beyond Biodiesel,

without catalyst "All" diesel will turn into a bright white wax? how many times do I have to process this? I will be using only PE.

I got soft wax on my 2nd test run using PE. The set up was simple and only one pass is necessary. No reflux. Heat to around 400'C and condense all the gas that comes off. I condensed at 20'C in a large bubbler and all the wax was left floating. Hope this helps.
See this post here for a pic

[stmehta]

Here is a thread dedicated to energyrecoverymachine.com and all some
contact info to log complaints:

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/7913-energyrecoverymachine-com.html

There isn't anything wrong with making money with public domain info. That is the point that
anyone can make money with it, use it, sell it, trade it, give it away.

But proper credit should be given and scam artists shouldn't take credit for other people's
inventions! And copyrighted info should be used only with permission.

I was in US recently and tried to contact the person who boasts of having developed a copy of Japanese desktop model etc with 4 times the production at half the cost. Since he was a fake he never responded to my calls which were all going to a Voice Mail.
Stmehta

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Hi Beyond Biodiesel,

without catalyst "All" diesel will turn into a bright white wax? how many times do I have to process this? I will be using only PE.

Thermal cracking will naturally occur for any complex hydrocarbon. All one has to do is recycle the heavy fractions back through the cracking unit. They will eventually crack into simpler hydrocarbons, and, once melted, will take up less room than the original plastic feed stock.

In fact, Jetiji has been experimenting with a feed mechanism. It would be easier to "feed" liquid plastics, via pressure driven pumping, than try to feed solid plastics with a screw.

I was in US recently and tried to contact the person who boasts of having developed a copy of Japanese desktop model etc with 4 times the production at half the cost. Since he was a fake he never responded to my calls which were all going to a Voice Mail.
Stmehta

Thanks, Stmehta, for exposing a fraud. It seems the internet is full of frauds posing as experts.

[helmat]

hi to all again.

here is info about getting naphta from waste plastic. Hope it is illuminative to contributors of the forum.

http://www.plasticsireland.ie/Sectors/PI/PI.nsf/vPages/Press_and_Publications~identiplast-2010---presentations-12-11-2010/$file/Producing%20Naphtha%20from%20Mixed%20Plastics%20Wa ste.pdf

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Thanks, Helmat, for the link to the very interesting article. The link was broken, but I fixed it, see below:

Producing Naphtha from Mixed Plastic Waste

I skimmed through the essay and noticed that catalyst only decreases heavy oil production by 10%, and increases diesel and naptha production proportionately, which is about 5% each. Which supports my premise, the use of a catalyst in a small pilot plant, such as is discussed here, is not economically viable. It is better to simply recycle the heavy fractions back into the retort, especially since they only account for about 10-15% of the output.

[helmat]

here is another one for catalytic degradiation for PP PE PS.

http://210.101.116.28/W_kiss2/03419867_pv.pdf

[Beyond Biodiesel]

Thanks, Helmut, for posting another useful link. Yesterday I was resting in between working on my distillation equipment, and I was gazing upon an oil stain in the dirt just outside of my warehouse space. It occurred to me that another use of the processes and practices we are discussing here would be to extract hydrocarbons from contaminated soils. Doing so could be a successful business.

Also, garages and filling stations often use kitty litter to mob up a spill. We could contact all of the garages and filling stations in our area and contract with them to take their contaminated kitty litter and run it through our retort/condensers to extract the oils from the kitty litter.

[thissideup]

Thanks, Helmut, for posting another useful link. Yesterday I was resting in between working on my distillation equipment, and I was gazing upon an oil stain in the dirt just outside of my warehouse space. It occurred to me that another use of the processes and practices we are discussing here would be to extract hydrocarbons from contaminated soils. Doing so could be a successful business.

Also, garages and filling stations often use kitty litter to mob up a spill. We could contact all of the garages and filling stations in our area and contract with them to take their contaminated kitty litter and run it through our retort/condensers to extract the oils from the kitty litter.

For Refrence, locally we have two disposal options for contaminated soils, one is Tervita landfill and Tervita fluid waste disposal site. If the flash point is low enough and the dirt is stackable, you can dispose of it for $30/ tonne, if the falsh point is to high or is not stackable, it must be processed, ( mixed with sawdust, and allowed to evaporate then hauled to landfill site ) this costs about $300/ tonne.

[fibuslitero]

Great link "Producing Naphtha from Mixed Plastics"
Thank you very much Helmat (and Beyond Biodiesel).

I would like to mention I used a PH strip with the latest fuel obtained and it was surprisingly 6 (a bit acid) .
Should it be always neutral 7?
Feedstock was theorically 100% clean polyolefins.
Is standard diesel fuel also acid since not all sulphur content is removed in refineries?
Engines metallic components will suffer with acid contents...

[imakebiodiesel]

Fuel used in a modern engine should definitely not be acidic, especially where aluminium or alloy head components are used. However your assay of the fuel may not be correct, Ph strips are only meant to test the acidity of aquaeous solutions, not hydrocarbon fuels.
A better way to find the acidity level is to use a titration test. Put a tiny pinch of tumeric into about 20 ml of isopropyl alcohol. This will serve as an effective indicator. Add exactly one ml of the fuel you want to test and stir. Drop by drop add a solution of one gram of KOH in 1 litre of distilled water to the mixture and record how many ml is needed to turn the colour from bright yellow to blood red. This number is the"T" or acid number of the fuel. An acid number of more than 2 would be a matter for concern.

[dutchdivco]

Great info,

IMBD, on detirming the acidity of fuels. I believe others have talked of sending samples to labs for analyses. Wondering what that costs, and what exactly you would ask them to test for?
And, as you've layed out here for testing acid level, could we do additional tests on our 'product', ourselves. I know specific gravity has already been discussed, think more 'complex' kinds of things a lab might do, as part of a comprehensive analyses.Jim

[imakebiodiesel]

Most important fuel quality tests can be carried out by anyone with some very basic equipment.
Viscosity. Take a 500ml plastic bottle and make a small hole near the bottom with a pin. Put your finger over the hole and fill almost to the top with water. Mark the level of the water, take your finger off the hole and allow the water to escape for 100 seconds and then mark the level again. Your viscometer is ready for use.
With your finger over the hole fill the bottle to the upper mark. remove your finger and time how long it takes for the level of of the test fuel to fall to the lower mark.
My tester records 96 seconds for petrol, 112 seconds for kerosene ,122 seconds for diesel and 128 seconds for biodiesel. While these are not true viscosity readings they are useful accurate comparative figures.

Water content. Water is the most harmful contaminant in diesel fuel and is normally tested with a carl fischer apparatus. , a very expensive piece of gear.
You can test fuel for water content with a Carbide manometer, a simple and cheap device you can assemble for about 25 euro. Rather than explain it use the link below to see how its is assembled and used.
carbide manometer video.wmv- YouTube
Most fuel tests can be replicated with simple stuff bought in your local pharmacy or supermarket. They will be accurate to about 1% which might not be good enough for laboratory use but is more than good enough for most of us.

[fibuslitero]

Fuel used in a modern engine should definitely not be acidic, especially where aluminium or alloy head components are used. However your assay of the fuel may not be correct, Ph strips are only meant to test the acidity of aquaeous solutions, not hydrocarbon fuels.
A better way to find the acidity level is to use a titration test. Put a tiny pinch of tumeric into about 20 ml of isopropyl alcohol. This will serve as an effective indicator. Add exactly one ml of the fuel you want to test and stir. Drop by drop add a solution of one gram of KOH in 1 litre of distilled water to the mixture and record how many ml is needed to turn the colour from bright yellow to blood red. This number is the"T" or acid number of the fuel. An acid number of more than 2 would be a matter for concern.

Thanks a lot for your indications .
From your explanations it is obvious you work with vegetable oil to produce biodiesel as your name says...
I knew it was not very orthodox and academic using directly a PH strip.
We need to know polarity and then their acidity in our hydrocarbon fuels.

[imakebiodiesel]

It would be useful to know the acid number of a batch of fuel from waste plastic. A high acid number could be caused by the wrong plastics getting into the mix. Both PET and PVC will produce acidic fuel.
The acid number test applied to all ASTM (American) and DIN (European) fuel standards is done by the titration method as I described.

[Potetsjokolade]

I got a question, is this patent? Or can I use this construction and the idea in my schoolproject?