How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[Excalibur]

[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.

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]

[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]

[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.