Making Fuel from Waste Plastic

What about toxic out gassing from melting the plastic?

I think it has incredible potential. It makes way more sense than the stupid ethanol scam.

There's really no reason that any plastic should go to the dump.

http://cleantechnica.com/2011/02/14/award-winning-inventor-makes-fuel-from-plastic-bags/

http://www.npr.org/2012/03/19/147506525/startup-converts-plastic-to-oil-and-finds-a-niche

Yes, it absolutely makes sense. It's obvious from those links that the process has commercial potential, and is a viable way of diverting waste plastic from the landfill - given the right infrastructure.

As a DIY setup, though, I can't help wondering about hazards. I don't want my friends to come to any harm making diesel for the truck in a can in the backyard.

That is a great link, kramarat, with important information about feedstocks as well as the design for a DIY barrel sized appliance.

"..if you use polyethylene (plastic cans, plastic foil, and all kind of flexible non break plastics) you will get out liquid fuel that will solidify as it cools into paraffin.....if you use polypropylene (computer monitor cases, printer cases, other plastics that break easily), you get out only liquid fuel.."

Also the author says the chlorine in PVC is an important reason not to get it in the feedstock, as it will corrode the equipment, and the oxygen in PET bottles makes it unsuitable as well, as the melt vessel environment should be oxygen free to prevent combustion.

I notice they used an old propane tank for the vessel, that would take the pressure. Maybe an oil drum would not be so great.

I'm not sure I can buy into the statement re. PE and PPRO producing different compounds.

They are both polyolefins and are pretty close chemically. But, That's only my opinion. I've never refined either.

It may have to do with additives, also.

Interesting they are identified on the basis of flexibility or lack thereof - so 'plasticizer' additives might be the likely candidate for the difference in product (?).

Note, he also said you can put the paraffin product through the process a second time, and get half liquid fuel and half hard wax as the product from it. They are all hydrocarbon products, the main difference he cited is length of chain but I would expect hard wax is also something with a 'saturated' chemical structure (as also found in solid vs liquid edible fats). Apparently that doesn't break down as easily as the basic chain length..(?)

He did mention that the byproduct left in the melt vessel is charcoal - ie broken down to pretty simple carbon product. So the rx is really aimed at a 'half-breakdown' of plastic to get liquid fuels.

Thanks for explaining the PE/PP structures.

I agree with you about recycling plastic - obviously more economical! but I do think the point (for my friend and probably for the commercial ventures too) was to utilize waste plastic that is headed for landfill, and is not in the recycling stream.

It's too bad PVC can't be used this way - or requires some additional process. A lot of it is going to the dump.

I agree, especially for post-consumer or other situations where the waste stream is highly mixed. I would suggest that PVC could probably be processed, especially if it was mixed with non halogenated materials & a calculated (not necessarily stoichiometric!) quantity af a Lewis base was run through as well. This might help reduce corrosion,I'd be interested to know.

Note on Lyn's (totally accurate for what he posted!) post on the molecular structure- polyethylene plastic is miss-named; it is formed from ethylene but the resulting structure is saturated, and from a chemical characteristics standpoint should be considered as polyethane.

Right.

But, as noted from reading the third link, most people aren't too familiar with how to characterize plastics.

.PPRO

PE

Don't know the answer. But, hey what the heck if it works.

Is there pressure? It looks like basic distillation, sort of.

It makes me want to find a source of used plastic and a used diesel generator.

Maybe some battery banks too.

hmm.. I always think of basic distillation as involving pressure - heating stuff in a closed container and drawing off vapours through a little tube.... Obviously, some design considerations include the operating temperature and the size of egress for the gases/vapours so there's not excess pressure buildup in the vessel. If the tube got blocked for any reason, there'd also be risk of bursting the vessel I reckon. But I am not an engineer, why I asked for safety advice.

Why did I think stills became illegal after a few doinks had em explode due to bad designs?

The operating temperature for the DIY plastic-to-fuel is 300 - 400 C (optimal) ie about the same as for ordinary petroleum distillation from crude. The flashpoints for fuel products are well below the operating temp, and so are the auto-ignition temperatures for the fuel products, so oxygen has to be excluded, any leakage or burstage of the tank or its seal would, I imagine, result in spontaneous combustion of one fraction or another, or a fairly serious risk of that happening....

So a sturdy vessel designed to take extra pressure seems like a good idea. Although, how sturdy, and would it really make any difference if a pressure buildup occurred accidentally... I don't know. I guess it would at least give the operator time to recognize that a problem had occurred, and turn off the heat.

I wonder, what is the industry standard for constructing the heating chamber in the basic crude distillation unit. It's always nice to know just how far off the industry safety standard your DIY might be....

Thanks for the info Kevin.

These are young folks determined to find ways to reduce waste and make a living in the process. It is a laudable goal, and new technologies are emerging because of those desires, but it is potentially tragic and futile to do so without being fully informed of the risks, so they can be properly addressed in the process.

My thoughts about scale-up is that, if it's worth doing, then every safety issue should be addressed. If it can't be addressed it is not something to pursue as a DIY.

This could be a very valuable process for farms to recycle their plastics into diesel for farm equipment, if the right scale process for those feedstocks is designed. For unidentified and/or contaminated plastics or PVC's, the design clearly has to address the toxicity issues as well.

Hello Kramarat:

Thank you very much for sharing this link, it made me think of the unthinkable for me: trade my CJ5 for a diessel vehicle. Sounds like piece of cake, but I'm intrigued about the condenser coil and water bubbler, do you know of some that are correctly sized for the project ? where can you get them?.

Thanks again, GA

I don't know, but if you follow the thread in the other forum, he provides drawings......................you just have to sign up to see them. Also a youtube video, which doesn't really show anything except for how simple it is.

I haven't read the whole thread, but he answers questions throughout.

After reading his thread it got me to thinking about setting up a simple used oil stock based system and distill gasoline and diesel fuel products out of some of the few thousand gallons of used oil I have now collected in the last year or so for my boiler.

Still sounds like greed and misrepresentation of facts has its hands in things.

"Each barrel of oil costs about $10 to produce. JBI can sell it for around $100 through a national distributor."

Then....

"But in its rush to grow, JBI has been accused by the Securities and Exchange Commission of overvaluing some of its assets in order to raise more funds."

They sell their product for 10 times what they claim it costs to make it putting its price over that of a barrel of oil. Sounds a bit greedy to me.

As far as the DIY method goes I am all for it! In fact I have been turning plastic into useful fuels for years by burning it in my boiler!

I'l start working on that as soon as I finish my current project..........a tree that grows money in my backyard

http://www.envion.com/wwa/

Indeed, another example of a commercial venture. It's only too bad they don't give any specifics about the feedstocks used and the proprietary tech design.

PVC is widely condemned because it is not easily recycled. But some companies are promoting their process accepting at least a small percentage of the more hazardous plastics.

So they say using a mixed feedstock is possible, but it's more like a percentage you can 'get away with', instead of a design to really address the toxicity and corrosion issues with PVC. What do you think?

Yes, but it looks more like a case of operating parameters in that particular case from a quick look at the link. When you say a design to address the toxicity & corrosion issues with PVC, what you're really saying is material selection & process controls that would likely put it far out of reach of anyone except large industry. So from that point, controlling inputs is the cheapest & easiest way to address the issues.

Note on your last point as to solids left in can- carbon is a given, but you might have a lot of filler especially if you're running scrap case material etc.; this is usually talc or glass fibre, so it is typically inert. Packaging material is less likely to give this. If you throw in polystyrene or styrofoam you're likely to have some fairly interesting chemical compounds as well, so you might want to steer clear of these until you know what you're doing.

Local cement plants in PA are already using recycled plastics in there kilns. They pay the local township for the collected plastics and shred into pellets and shoot them into the furnace that heats the kilns. I'm not sure of the science behind it but I do know its being used.

My list formed during my DD on plastic pyrolysis to form fuel:

Alphakat
Klean Industries
Agilyx - AG Plastic Reclaim
Ventana
Polyflow - RES Polyflow
KleanTech Industries
Alter NRG
Polymer Energy
Cynar
WO2011077419
SITA
Suez Environnement
PyroPure
RODECS
Chinook Energy
Active Pyro
BLEST
Joule Unlimited
Splainex Ecosystems
Plasco
Nature's Fuel
CHEVRON USA INC
Robau
Fulcrum BioEnergy
InEnTec
Solena
DINTER
WO2012065342
DAP
Ruixin Group
USED TYRE DISTILLATION RESEARCH LIMITED
SIERRA ENERGY
Fuji Recycle Industry
Mobil Catalysts
Tosoh Corp
GRANIT SYSTEM S.A.
Martin Linck Gas Technology Institute
Linck - United States Patent Application 20100132258
Xinxiang Xinda Energy Equipment Co., Ltd.
Jiangsu
Air Products - AlterNRG
Texaco gasification technology
Rational Energies
Erus
Enerkem
Pyrocrat
Xinxiang Huayin
PARC - Plastic Advanced Recycling Corp
Harita-NTI
NTIC
Poly-Green Technology and Resources
Climax Global Energy* Allendale, South Carolina
Envion* Washington, D.C.
GEEP* Barrie, Ontario (Alphakat tech)
GreenMantra Recycling Technology Toronto , Ontario
Natural State Research (NSR)Stamford, Connecticut
Nexus Fuels Atlanta, Georgia
Northeastern University Gas (skips distillation process)
Recarbon corp. Kingston, Pennsylvania
Vadxx* Cleveland, Ohio
Anhui Oursun Environmental Technologies China Hefei in Anhui, China
ECO - Int'l Marketing Korea
P-Fuel, Ltd. Australia
PlastOil Switzerland
Polymer Energy U.S. Thailand, India
Northern Technologies International Corporation - NTIC
T Technology Poland (Zbigniew Tokarz)
Energy Dynamics Corporation International (EDCI)
Standard Oil International Ltd.
GenAgain Technologies (Agilyx)
AK-ER Bioenergy
Lyns Ltd
Eco Creation
Kool Manufacturing Company
Bhagirath Equipments
Green Light Energy Solutions Corp. - GLES
UE Korea
Ecoproject - EPYR
PER Global Solutions
Niutech Energy Ltd.
Sanjivani Phytopharma Pvt Ltd
Solazyme
Ineos
PATPERT TEKNOW SYSTEMS - Patpert Technow Systems
Eco Waste Solutions
Recycled Energy Corporation (REC)

Wow... that's an amazing list. Welcome to CR4, nanopatent, and thanks for sharing.

It sure is!!!! but he forgot to list the leader in the plastic2oil field

www.plastic2oil.com is a publicly traded company out of Ontario with 3 machines in Niagara Falls NY and a second location in Jacksonville Florida under the early stages of development

What a shame. Why not use the moulded product as a substitute for wooden railway sleepers?

Plastics can be too flexible in high summer temps and too brittle in cold winter plus the issue of sunlight degradation comes into play as well being most mass produced plastics are UV sensitive and break down in a few months to a few years with direct exposure to sunlight and the elements.

Around here they are switching to steel reinforced concrete railroad ties being concrete based ones are solid, durable, and cheap to make.

Good idea. Just be sure to get your city permit, your county permit, your state permit, and your federal permit before proceeding.

And do the environmental impact study first.

On another note: First column: specific energy MJ/kg

Second column Energy density MJ/L

here is a plastic to oil machine actually in use here in N.America

http://yukon-news.com/business/30194/

And that is a good example of a situation where this sort of thing could be considered synergistic.

That's great.

And where does it make more sense to do it than in the north country.

This makes a lot of sense for isolated places - it would make sense here too. Consuming fuel to ship plastic south for recycling makes it a very lossy cycle.

The article wasn't clear whether the machine actually handles PVC though.

"Just about any plastic can be fed into the machine. Paper labels and a little dirt won't hurt it, but the material should be relatively dry......"

"... Recycling centres in the south will pay for the number ones and number twos, which comprise a lot of beverage containers and related products. Polyvinyl chloride, the number three plastic, is toxic and quite nasty to deal with. No one will pay for numbers four through seven, which could make them an untapped gold mine."

So it sounds like a numbers 4-7 are really the ideal fuel stock, but PVC problem has yet to be solved.

I have Family and friends still up there and the have said it is working great there. According to a friend there they have run ALL plastics (PVC included) with no issues. It apparently has to do with the melting temperatures being just right.

If so, there must be some kind of filter in the cycle to capture the chlorine in PVC that is separated from the hydrocarbons. And the vessel designed to resist corrosion - might explain why it is so expensive, cw the DIY that was posted, which can be built for around $1200.

The article says "The only other byproducts include a tiny bit of carbon residue, carbon dioxide and water vapour." So the question, what happens to the chlorine from PVC, isn't answered. One of the other commercial ventures said they could handle a small percentage of PVC in the feedstock, but again, no details as to what happens to the chlorine, whether it is minimized in the feedstock so the emissions are small enough to be considered 'negligible', or whether those chlorine residues are captured in some way.

What sort of filter would be used to remove chlorine gas from the CO2/vapour emissions stream?

I'm not sure but a few of the systems here look like part of the unit in the newspaper photo:www.pollutionsystems.com

Yep, it looks like a wet scrubber would be good for chlorine:

http://www.pollutionsystems.com/wet-scrubbers.html

A part of the DIY design is also similar - bubbling through water is part of the cooling/condensation process but might perform the scrubbing function for chlorine at least, in addition to being a flashback arrestor. (I'm speculating, I'm not a designer of systems like these!).

Digging up some old dirt: http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/63050