Diesel from plastic?

[newtonweir]

Hi all,

Recently I made a post about my small engines, and how I want to use them for production of useful amounts of power.

Hamradioop and The-Great-Nothing suggested using a wood gassifier to produce fuel for the engines, and this is something Im looking into making.

In a similar vein, I just found this (OK its a totally different process, but its fuel from 'nothing').



Not the sort of thing you'd want to get wrong really, could have disastrous consequences.

It is actually a well documented process : http://tinyurl.com/nktuzxg

Regards,

Steven.

[tigs]

I am seriously impressed , you are one hell of an engineer , and with the amount of plastic knocking about you have an unlimited supply of diesel

just two questions 1, how much did it cost to build? and 2, do you need a doctorate in engineering to build it?

[newtonweir]

Sorry if I gave the wrong impression, Tigs, alas that video of the plastic/diesel set up is not mine - I'm still trying to learn to weld so I can bodge my generator together!

I just wonder about the safety of this method shown here... Its sort of reminiscent of those 'moonshine stills' in the backwoods of nowhere-much... lethal when they go up!

Regards,

S.

[tigs]

well modern home stills are nothing more than old moonshine stills with added safety valves and looking at the plastic to diesel still it looked safe-ish he only thing I would worry about is the build up of the diesel with the outlet valve turned off!

[nickdutch]

From the video I would say that it seems like a good idea, but you have to invest rather a lot of time and energy into making the apparatus, more time in testing the apparatus, improving your skills in making it work, and then more time to harvest the plastic waste and turn that into fuel. Then you have fuel storage concerns as well. Also one would have to think about the cleanliness of the fuel and whether a modern diesel engine / electricity generator would be ok to run it.

The safety aspect is something that does concern me to a degree. Even regular bio-diesel making to the level of purity that is required has its dangers because of the use of strong alkali ("lye" or KOH).

Also, you need to think about what you want to use it for and whether in whatever scenario you consider is going to happen (unemployment, power cut in the winter) it will be that much of a high priority when other fuels could be more useful.

I suppose you have to take into account the number of people you are catering for these days too. For a family it would be more practical than for a single person at home.

Unless you have a great deal of access to waste plastic and rubbery materials, it might be less economical in the long term.

I am still more in favor of alcohol as an emergency fuel. Its probably safer to make, takes up less room and is a multi use product.

[ForgeCorvus]

Interesting.......

One way of getting rid of the mountains of plastic waste that gets land-filled (bad) or incinerated(really bad) each year, I'm talking about the contaminated stuff that can't be recycled.

Newton, let us know if you decide to move forward with this.....I'd love to hear about it for a bloke whos done it


Alcohol is also viable. Its safer and cleaner, but not as energy rich as petro-chemicals.......... Mind you, you can't disinfect with diesel


With fuels its probably best to have a multi-pronged approach

[poppypiesdad]

not as straight forward as it seems , uses a huge amount of power 6kw over 3 phases , seems to be the same item here, looks similar , ok you get a little less than a litre per KG but youll need a lot of fuel to power a genny and youll needa huge genny to run it in a shtf situation .

Great idea if youve got power .great idea to get rid of waste , but how much would a liter cost ?


Jamie

[newtonweir]

Hi All,

Thanks for replies.

I think this is a relatively easy project, IF you have a reason to need it, and IF you can get economy of scale. For a small scale operation, you would be better off looking at other things, petrol, paraffin, petrol/paraffin, TVO, vegetable oil, alcohol etc.

This method suits a certain set of circumstances, and is equally valid under those circumstances, though it wont be for everybody.

I will be giving this a go at some point in the future ForgeCorvus, but there is the wood gas project ahead of it, and some other bits and pieces.

From the other 'backup power' type thread, I've just got my alternator mounted on a trolley I welded up, with some wheels off one of my older smaller engine trollies. Its just too hot today to go manhandling a diesel engine on there, so it'll have to wait! I might start rewiring the alternator to its control panel though.