How to turn plastic waste into diesel fuel cheaply

[fibuslitero]

Animation of a simple telescoping biogas digester - YouTube

Floating Drum Anaerobic Digester - YouTube

I try to attach a photo of two telescopic drums for CH4 connected after the biodigester.

Now that my reactor is properly isolated (with glass wool), I've got to much returning vapour.
Any ideas on how to store the vapour gas?
Thanks.
Alec.

[Alec]

Now that my reactor is properly isolated (with glass wool), I've got to much returning vapour.
Any ideas on how to store the vapour gas?
Thanks.
Alec.

Thanks for all the replies.
This forum is really a big help.

Alec.

[Audro]

Please answer (asad ;imakebiodiesel;jetijs...)

Termocouple (reactor) located in any place- vapour or liquid?

[imakebiodiesel]

Hello Audro, definitely in the vapour at the top of the reactor. A, because thats the information you need and B, because its not likely to survive long anywhere else.

[extraloud]

reactor size and hieght to width ratio

Hello -

I have made my 5 gallon ( ~20 Liters) size reactor - and i am still continuing to run experiments with this.

I am in the planing on making a 40 gallon (150 Liter) unit next.

The Height to Width ratio of the 5 gallon one was 1.4
it is 10 inch diameter and 14 inch high.

I am not sure what an ideal ratio is - there are a couple of different thoughts on the matter.

1- Having a large diameter and shorter reactor will allow for a larger liquid / vapor interface for the reaction.

2 - Having a taller and less wide reactor will allow more side surface area heating on the side walls. ( most people here are using the electric bands) - I am using the propane burner from the bottom.

Another thought - when the plastic becomes melted it only occupies the very bottom of the reactor. But i plan on added a feeder to be able to continuously feed in new plastic to fill it more.

what do people think about this? - I am thinking of using a 2/1 H/W - just because......

[islander]

To Asad

I already RUN my car with clean new motor oil. Il works perfectly.
It has been mixed with wvo into the tank. It's almost the same but better.

I already RUN my car with a little amount of used oil. It's a serious poison to the injectors and brings many problems.

I beleive the only way to clean that is to Distill it, but in fact it Will not Distill, it Will be converted into syn crude. Now I try to simple make diesel, as new car won't accept oil.

[imakebiodiesel]

A reactor using heater bands is only efficient if the level of the molten plastic inside the reactor is above the level of the band heater. in a batch process the level of the plastic falls and so does the efficiency. I think the ideal system might be a relatively small reactor, fed continuously with either melted or shredded plastic so that the reactor acts with maximum efficiency. the total output from one session will be limited by the build up of coke or the life of the catalyst.
At present my small reactor is heated by propane from below but my new larger reactor will be electric bands

[Asad Farooqui]

reactor dimensions

Hello -
I am in the planing on making a 40 gallon (150 Liter) unit next.

what do people think about this? - I am thinking of using a 2/1 H/W - just because......

Hello Extraloud ;
Nice to hear you are going for a bigger reactor size .
Iam also fabricating a new reactor which will be gas heated having boiler heating tubes inside . This is a novel concept & theoretically it should heatup the reactor in half the time than the wall heating concept .

For propane heating from bottom, I would recommend you to make a reactor having very short height about 18 inches and width of 60 inches .

At the bottom place many burners in a series , through out the width of the reactor .
You have to heat as much surface area as possible .

[Asad Farooqui]

WVO + WMO-pyrolysed-diesel

I already RUN my car with clean new motor oil. Il works perfectly.
It has been mixed with wvo into the tank. It's almost the same but better.

I already RUN my car with a little amount of used oil. It's a serious poison to the injectors and brings many problems.

I beleive the only way to clean that is to Distill it, but in fact it Will not Distill, it Will be converted into syn crude. Now I try to simple make diesel, as new car won't accept oil.

Hello Islander ;
1) What do you mean by clean motor oil ?
Do you mean Plastic-pyrolysed-Gasoline ???

2) WMO can be Pyrolysed into crude which can easily be frac-distillate to gasoline+Kerosine+Diesel .
WMO-derived diesel viscosity is almost the same as petro-diesel .

Wouldn't it be worth trying mixing WVO-diesel with WMO-derived diesel .
A mixing ratio of WVO/WMO-diesel=25/75. (also any other suitable ratio, if you think ? ).

Using WMO-derived-diesel not black-WMO, will avoid all the undesirable stuff of black-WMO.

If any ratio even WVO+WMO-diesel=(10/90) is mixable & runs the diesel engine well . We can label this mixture as BIO-DIESEL & hopefully can sell this mixture officially in those countries where Bio-diesel sales is allowed .

[islander]

To asad

1) clean motor oil : lubricating oil for motor lubricating use.

According to the motor you run, and according to it's wear, you can use more or less of heavier oils (like vegetable oil or motor oil)

After a long usage of the heavier oils and years of experience, my conclusion is : actually you better not do it, because the motor is not designed for it. Main problem is the combustion temp is too low, then after years you get extensive piston/head coking. if you don't mind opening your motor every 2 years to remove carbob desposit, and if you better have a few diesel pumps with injectors availiable too.

On the other hand, the commercial diesel is perfect as it has extremely low coking when burning in the motor, so very little service. So my goal is to make this one.

Mixing :

I had run perfectly only on wvo but with the condition of using 5% gasoline in it. On that basis, I could use as much diesel as I wanted. But if I put more diesel, I get more vegetable oil smoke.

I beleive a little gasoline is good to lower the viscosity and to help fire, but too much light fuel does cool the fuel when evaporating. why not very probably gasoline from wmo could work the same.

For my 5% please note I am in tropical area and never had a winter.

I tried kerosene mix with the wvo, but it was bad after a while.

The wvo have a problem with water content. Had to remove. And it naturally polymerise evzrywhere. Tank, injection pump, etc. That's hard and dirty. Commercial diesel don't

[islander]

To asad

I already told I am the inventor of an oil burner.

I did use many oils in it, but the best always been the wmo. Very easy to light, boil at a low temperature, and get nice blue flame. The vegetable oil is much hard to use, light only at a much high temp, and very hard to get a little blue in the flame.

[congnghiah4]

Wov

Hi Asad

1) clean motor oil : lubricating oil for motor lubricating use.

According to the motor you run, and according to it's wear, you can use more or less of heavier oils (like vegetable oil or motor oil)

After a long usage of the heavier oils and years of experience, my conclusion is : actually you better not do it, because the motor is not designed for it. Main problem is the combustion temp is too low, then after years you get extensive piston/head coking. if you don't mind opening your motor every 2 years to remove carbob desposit, and if you better have a few diesel pumps with injectors availiable too.

On the other hand, the commercial diesel is perfect as it has extremely low coking when burning in the motor, so very little service. So my goal is to make this one.

Mixing :

I had run perfectly only on wvo but with the condition of using 5% gasoline in it. On that basis, I could use as much diesel as I wanted. But if I put more diesel, I get more vegetable oil smoke.

I beleive a little gasoline is good to lower the viscosity and to help fire, but too much light fuel does cool the fuel when evaporating. why not very probably gasoline from wmo could work the same.

For my 5% please note I am in tropical area and never had a winter.

I tried kerosene mix with the wvo, but it was bad after a while.

The wvo have a problem with water content. Had to remove. And it naturally polymerise evzrywhere. Tank, injection pump, etc. That's hard and dirty. Commercial diesel don't

The WOV mainly stearic acid (C.sub.17H.sub.34)and glycerol .
These two components causing smoke and coke in the chamber and close injection pump
thank

[islander]

Coking and ashes

Yes, one who makes fuel really have better to test those 2 points.

We should check if the fuel gonna produce coke at it's burning temp, Like in a oil burner. The coking Will be very important factor at the injector nose.
Then if burning rate and atomisation is not good, gonna fill the piston and cylinder head.


And also we should Check the ash production of the oil.
Veg. Does produce a lot. It's bad for the engine.

About how to test those factors,

coking : In a clean cooking pot, pour 1 liter of the fuel, heat it under and make burn. After burning, collect the unburn coke if any.
Commercial diesel left nothing.

Ashes : my method is not correct, as may have ashes into the smoke, but seems enough for us : based on the combustion of the coke. If no coke in former test, then no ashes. Red heat in a heat resistant pot, an let coke burn with the oxygen of the air. Resulting are ashes.

Ashes are not good for your liners and rings inside your engine.
Commercial diesel produce no ashes according to my test methods.

[imakebiodiesel]

Asad, my apologies, I thought you meant to try a mixture of wvo and wmo in my car. I see now that you meant biodiesel and diesel derived from wmo. I have only tried cracking wmo once and the fuel I got from it has turned black so I cant do that test at the moment. Im testing a new batch of catalyst at the moment with PE/PP so dont want to introduce wmo into the test. perhaps in a few weeks when this test is over

Islander you correctly identify the three main drawbacks of using wvo in place of dinodiesel.
1. water content, no fuel should contain more than 500ppm (parts per million) of water. any more and you can do serious damage to your injector pump and injectors.
2. Viscosity. Wvo is much thicker than diesel and this places great stress on the injector pump. after a while seals may break down. Adding some petrol to wvo thins it down but also lowers the cetane value of the wvo so its not a complete solution.
3. Ash. as you have shown wvo does not burn completely and leaves deposits that will eventually clog up your engine.
converting wvo to biodiesel solves all three of these problems, although the viscosity of biodiesel is still slightly higher than dino diesel but much less than wvo.

[Asad Farooqui]

Plastic derived diesel mix with WVO-diesel .

Asad, my apologies, I thought you meant to try a mixture of wvo and wmo in my car. I see now that you meant biodiesel and diesel derived from wmo.

Hello Imakbiodiesel ;

What Iam looking for is the possibility of mixing/blending Bio-diesel with plastic or WMO-derived-diesel .

So if U have any plastic derived diesel at the moment than just blend it with Bio-diesel & check its compatibility and engine running-performance.

I will repeat again that even if a small proportion of bio-diesel mixes in the plastic-derived diesel it will be wonderful .

In my country Bio-diesel is not available & Iam in no mood of learn how to make bio-diesel .
My research is focused nowadays on deriving styrene-monomer from waste plastic .

Secondly Iam converting my 100 gallon batch type reactor to a continous feeding system .


Test it ASAP .
Thanks