Plastic to fuel - Make fuel from plastic waste [Episode 3] As Featured on UNILAD TECH
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 พ.ค. 2021
- If we can’t recycle all of it, why not turn our waste plastic into fuel?
In this video, I upgraded my furnace and moved it to a better location. I have also managed to condense the vapor into fuel. I still have upgrades coming as you will see in the video!
Follow me as I dip my toes in this topic and perhaps find the best plastic to turn into fuel for diesel or even petrol engines.
If you like what you saw please press the like, subscribe buttons, and ring the notification bell for more videos
How plastic to energy works.
Plastic is made from refined crude oil. Its price and production are dictated by the petrochemical industry and the availability of oil. As oil is a finite natural resource, the most sustainable option would be to reduce crude oil consumption by recycling plastic and recovering as much of the raw material as possible.
There are two types of recycling: mechanical and chemical. Mechanical recycling involves sorting, cleaning, and shredding plastic to make pellets, which can then be fashioned into other products. This approach works very well if plastic wastes are sorted according to their chemical composition.
Chemical recycling, in contrast, turns the plastic into an energy carrier or feedstock for fuels. There are two different processes by which this can be done: gasification and pyrolysis.
Gasification involves heating the waste plastic with air or steam, to produce a valuable industrial gas mixture called “synthesis gas”, or syngas. This can then be used to produce diesel and petrol or burned directly in boilers to generate electricity.
In pyrolysis, plastic waste is heated in the absence of oxygen, which produces a mixture of oil similar to crude oil. This can be further refined into transportation fuels.
Gasification and pyrolysis are completely different processes to simply incinerating the plastic. The main goal of incineration is simply to destroy the waste, thus keeping it out of the landfill. The heat released from incineration might be used to produce steam to drive a turbine and generate electricity, but this is only a by-product.
Gasification and pyrolysis can produce electricity or fuels, and provide more flexible ways of storing energy than incineration. They also have much lower emissions of sulfur and nitrogen oxides than incineration.
Currently, incineration plants are viewed as an alternative energy supply source and a modern way of driving a circular economy, particularly in Japan, South Korea, and China, where land is valuable and energy resources are scarce. In other countries, although waste incineration is common practice, the debate around human health impacts, supply issues, and fuel trade incentives remain unresolved. - บันเทิง
I saw a much bigger setup like this in Nicaragua in a village off the Ocean. They would collect the plastics that washed up to turn into fuel to run an old engine to make electricity.
Some people have some really nice setups!
I saw it on TH-cam too. There's a couple there that do that.
@@samuelgamato971 There is a youtube video of one down there? They are probably common. I saw one bout 8 years ago in a village down the coast from Bluefields while exploring a bit till the next boat going to the Corn Islands.
@@torvusjunction do you have a Schematic to make it easy to understand how to setup? Please and thanks!
Ah, good times fishing for white lobster...
I want to see Nile red do this and explain every detail on how to do this.
That would be great actually, I also watch his channel.
@@torvusjunction you should totally reach out to him.
Looks like pyrolysis. Essentially: using heat to break large molecules into smaller ones. The smallest ones evaporate the easiest so they come out of the end of the tube as a gas.
100 per cent
@@torvusjunction I would like to see you use tree bark to make gas that can be used in a lawn mower or whatever. This experiment was so cool too. In the back recesses of my mind I knew that oil was used to make plastic but I honestly had no clue that it could be turned back into useful fuel. That is too cool. (I had to go back and edit this comment since my phone seems to like making me sound like a three year old when I talk... or should I say type. LOL too funny :) )
All right, man. The police are gone, you can dump out that damned plastic and put the corn mash back in the pot still.
Lol that what i said too! Moonshine is better fuel too! Lol
You need to cover the bottom of your can with lime stone gravel/sand 1/4" minus. This acts as a catalyst converting 70% to sulfur free diesel a mix of number 1 kerosene and number 2 truck fuel. You'll also get 20% high octane gasoline, and 10% gases and heavys that will stay in the can. You need metal pipe and containers for your system. The glass will break with cold breeze. Run your still pipe straight up with a tee joint about every 2 ft to tap off your production put a water jacket below the top tee where the gasoline and gases will come out. You also need a steelwool chamber above the can to catch all the chlorine gases that come off some plastics, and sulfur byproducts. If you put copper plates full of marbles every foot you'll crack your fuel into purer products without the cloudy part. You need to wash yours with water by mixing and letting the good fuel float off after it settles. Without the limestone your fuel isn't being cracked into normal fuel. It's a mix of who knows what.
I was just gonna say that 😆
You might be a rocket scientist guy!
No more beer for you, Cliff Claven!
Literaly what is on everyone’s mind when they watch this video. You speak for all of us my friend
amen
Try adding a tablespoon of water to the initial plastic, I worked at a plastics plant.
Two per cent water was added to the cracker stream breaking propane into propylene gas that prevented coking on the exit valves that was a bitch to remove, like a baked up oven. The water fixed that. Might make a difference in quality.
Thanx for the tip buddy, Ill try that next time.
How many fuel spend it? Vs earn
I'm thinking that's definitely a missing link good call on the H²0. Thinking maybe add the water to the stage One or 2 and run that through for a cleaner batch?
Thanks for the positive comments!
That H2O was hard won data, might even be corporate process secret.!
@@dallasschneider4564 I add xylene to the plastic and skip the fire. ♨️
Fun video! I did this with some high school kids about eight years ago for a science fair. I would love to build another condenser and try it again. Our gas collector (1st stage) was a heavy duty water filter, it also got too hot and cracked. We still produced just about the same result that you did here. Thanks for sharing this.
There is a video of a Pilot plant in Australia that can turn any plastic in a type of crude oil. I mean getting a little oil is a great little bonus to cleaning up plastic recycling that is currently not being recycled.
Congrats! You used thermal depolymerization. That's how wood gasification was used in WW2 to run engines, but it wasn't used to make fuel. It is also how biodiesel and some other alternative and conventional fuels are made. You might want to research that, too.
Congrats for pointing out the video?....
@@danielcrawlson1174 No, for actually using thermal depolymerization in the video. It's how wood gasification works, and slightly how petrol refinery works. Petrol refining, and other synthetic fuels refining, looks and functions a lot more like a reflus still. The channel "Tech Ingredients" has a video named "Distilling ALCOHOL With Our New Reflux Still!", in which it explains how a reflux still works, and people in the comment section say they work or worked in petrol refining and the process is the same, but the materials of the petrol refineries are different because they use strong acids to kill bacteria, fungi, and microorganisms.
I feel like if he is doing the process he probably has a good understanding of it that would be like walking up to someone building a garage and saying congratulations you are constructing they use similar practices to build houses you should research it
Er not really Bio diesel is made from used cooking oils filtered or were we you referring to rape seed oil derived Fuels ?
@@darrenjones3681 bio diesel is made from any biological source... you know? Bio.
This reminds me of working in the oil refineries. Ppl have no idea where their electronic devices come from or what goes into the manufacture of them. Tripped a crude tower, rebuilt a hoist in a coke plant, installed pipe racks and new infrastructure, lots of fun work.
I'm impressed. Now I will be keeping a lookout for distillation materials.
Soon, I am currently planning and building a upgraded "still"
I’ve been doing experiments like this for decades and my advice is to use a mason jar since it can handle higher temperatures and it also has a metal lid so fittings are easy to attach. Also place the mason jar into a deep bowl of water for cooling. This will hep condense more of the volatile fraction and keep the jar cooler.
I love this. Looks like a closed system so it's great to see. And then the discussion we all get better. Thank you
Its amazing how so much diesel fuel comes out in liquid form, from just cooking Plastic
Show us the Results ! Then !
replace the air in the cylinder with CO2 before heating it. then you have to control the temperature until the point of condensation, so that you get the products you want. plastic is oil in a solid form. you are basically fractionally distilling it. The CO2 stops the plastic burning.
Or what about nitrogen? Nitrogen is more readily available and has the additional benefit of being chemically inert.
Yes oxygen should be purged.
@@MACROPARTICLE
CO2 is much denser than air and pure N2. so the CO2 will flow to the bottom of the container, expelling the air upwards and out of the vessel as it fills.
What about pulling a vacuum on the vessel before heating? Assuming you have a vessel that can withstand a vacuum of course.
@@user-fs3dg1po2z unnecessary complication. CO2 is much easier to handle than a vacuum. and it is impossible to create a complete vacuum by pumping out air. whereas, providing the plastic in the reactor has no air traps, CO2 can completely eliminate the oxygen.
Interesting! Thank you for making this video & sharing it with us!
This was super. Thank you so much for sharing.
I’ve been looking for a video like this for so long. I’ve made a gasifier like this myself with all the water traps and turned plastic into carbon and syngas. This is is the solution to plastic waste even though people don’t understand the process and think “burning plastic is bad for the environment” anyways great video 👏. It would be cool to share some ideas with you.
Yes please share them, I love to hear other ideas and improvements. I have so many ideas with the plastic "Distiller" haha
@@torvusjunction I use a mason jar filled with cotton balls or wood chips to catch thicker materials that made it over, other than that I have the exact same setup as you but I’m trying to make it on a bigger scale maybe with a steel drum as a reaction vessel and the left over carbon I would bury underground to have a carbon negative system. I’m also trying to find a way to pressurize and store the syngas in some tank. This really is the best way to deal with waste cool to see other plastic distiller enthusiasts out there 😂
@@stepsister5566 takes more energy to heat the plastic than you are gathering.. Cool idea tho.
What do you mean?
People think gasification and pyrolysis is "burning plastic" but it is not. It is decomposing the plastic into the oil and natural gas it was made of
Ahhhh I remember going down the old pyrolysis rabbit hole. Good times.
Perfect boredom killer.
@@torvusjunction it certainly is. I think whomever cracks the process efficiently enough to get a decent ROI will make mega bucks.
@@moisty254 There are already videos on it, but they use ceramic containers to prevent as much energy loss as possible. This video has too much energy lost to give a good ROI.
@@drproton85 yeah that and further refinement
The efficiency of this is unbelievable.
I like the final result, the oil is very clean compared to other guys' projects i've seen. From the looks of it, even the first stage oil looks alright for generic use.
I guess you could run an engine on that with a little filtering.
Thank mate great straight forward video!
I would love to see more on this subject (like different experimenting methods, live usage, or making fire starters with cotton/wood/fabric first distill dipped!!)
Or another interesting one maybe use something like bicycle tubing to store the gases and use on demand!!
Just subscribed.
Nice experiment. Obviously not an attempt at commercial manufacture, but a well thought out and executed process. Only thing I'd like to mention that others dont appear to have is this: you used HDPE as the input (at least as far as I can make out). However, HDPE is already probably the most widely recycled plastic in the world and actually still has some value to recyclers rather than simply costing money to recycle. LDPE (most plastic bags/flexible packaging) on the other hand costs money to recycle and typically ends up in landfill or is burnt in incinerators (hopefully some nitpickers wont take issue with these statements about some little remote place which actually manages to defy the norm). Rarely is it ever recycled. I would be curious to see how LDPE fares in your setup - perhaps the differences in molecular bonding will make it much easier to convert. And that would be a useful real-world benefit considering the vast quantities of soft plastic waste we generate. All the best!
Selling the HDPE to recyclers is probably the better option, but knowing you can make something with it, such as fuel for what ever is a pretty cool thing.
@@torvusjunction is it me or is what you did dangerous? When that hose failed and all those fumes escaped was that good for the planet and the living things on it? Is burning that stuff safe or does it burn clean? I can't imagine that what you did is environmentally friendly but hey maybe it is. I know very little.
@@torvusjunction Don't quote me on this but when a hade a class in polymers my teacher said that burning polyethylene can actually be cleaner burning than wood. This is supposedly because it is only composed of a single chain of hydrocarbons, which makes it not produce a lot of aromatics or other nasty stuff like halogen compounds. But when burned it probably produces som sot, hydrocarbons and some carbon monoxide but these are easily oxidized. As they are easily oxidized they will probably not cause a lot of harm in the long-run as long as you don't continually burn a lot more of polyethylene. Just to be clear HDPE is a typ of polyethylene.
@@leahcim38 I didn't strike at anyone. I don't do activism. I saw something that didn't look right and as I expected wasn't right (I say that based on the reply I got from this youtuber) so I replied. Break off a twig when it's young and it won't grow to be a beam in someones home.
@@elprimo1
Here's an alternative way to consider this.
The plastic isn't some mystic poison from a different universe, it's oil that came out of the ground. The oil was processed to create plastic. Now the plastic is being processed to create different gases and oils, same stuff that already existed.
Rain lands on a mountain, gravity pulls it downward. It forms with other rain in the low spots, creates a trickle then a stream. Over time the grand canyon is formed.
Oh my terrible, erosion and destruction.
Point being, we create nothing and destroy nothing, we change it from one form to another and the cycle eventually repeats.
A tree that takes in CO2 and releases oxygen thought it's life, dies and decays, releasing the same amount of methane and CO2 as it absorbed while using oxygen in the process.
Whether this plastic is burned, buried or digested, it returns in different forms all beneficial and all harmful, really does depend on perspective.
What truly isn't environmentally friendly is life and the environment.
An environment isn't simply what is conducive or convenient, desired or comfortable for humans.
Everywhere has an environment, many of them are not compatible with human survival. Is that bad? Did we cause that?
Even deep water is not a good environment for humans but we have lots of it, should we start draining and filling? Probably not
Nature has a way of balancing and things always work out as the are supposed to. Unfortunately what we suppose to be best isn't always aligned with what will happen.
These same processes are done on large scale, the electronic device you used to comment created is more polluting to the environment than a guy experimenting with a gallon can in his backyard.
Seems pretty ridiculous to worry about the environmental impacts of this while using electricity produced in far more harmful ways to power a device that can only exist by doing far more drastic damage to what you pretend to be important.
I say pretend because it's impossible to follow that logic to any conclusion that doesn't make the entire comment either hypocritical or ridiculous.
Look at many of our forest, if there is not a beetle or bug, some bacteria or fungi killing the trees, there are natural wildfires, floods, storms, erosion etc.
When speaking of environmental concerns what people are really speaking about is sustaining human life and population density.
The earth and the environment will be fine with or without us. Things change.
One day there is a mile of ice and snow over the ground the next it's warm and sunny with fertile fields, abundant forest and clean fresh water.
This is the nature of humanity, to attempt to tame natural and feel in control of destiny.
One random rock hurtling through space will make more of an impact than humans have made in recorded history.
I say lighten up and enjoy the ride. But as long as you want to enjoy the comforts and conveniences of life as you know it, don't pretend you're worried about the environment or some backyard experiments.
Btw, there's a couple on a Caribbean island that collects plastics from the ocean and use a very similar but larger scale process to create fuel and organic fertilizer. The produce their own power for irrigation and raise food where otherwise they wouldn't be able to.
Rather they kill the environment that way or just leave the plastics in the ocean?
Just some thoughts
This is a great proof of concept.
Pretty good setup for shine too
You need a higher pyrolysis temperatures around 400°C and an iron wool catalyst (or even better with nickel and higher pressure) in the hot pipe to get more short chained diesel/kerosine than wax/paraffins?
Tons of energy input Tiny out put
You meant to write tons in capital letters, because this method is really inefficient.
Atleast the pine-cones are kind of free energy.
@@torvusjunction I once sold a single very large pinecone for $60. One huge one went for $100. So they aren't even always free. But your point is well taken.
@@drunkbuzzard3237 Here in South Africa there isn't really a market for selling pinecones 😂
When the gas stations no longer have fuel and your money is worthless, this method of creating energy for running farm equipment and other such vehicles is going to be extremely well worth the input.
Absolutely Amazing!
Great video.
Thank you for teaching me something useful.
Down on the farm we do this very thing to keep are kerosene heaters going , I learned it from a old timer , it’s kinda like moonshining but with milk jugs & not mash . Works a charm & saves money in the winter Months .
All this time I've been using diesel in my van when all I needed was half a tonne of bricks, three jars, a plant pot, 5 meters of copper pipe, 10 gallon of water, a paint tin, fittings, 700 pine cones and a shit load of plastic.
A shit load of plastic indeed hahahahaha
@@torvusjunction I'm only playing, I actually really liked it. I think things like this are cool.
Don't forget the load of work...
Would love to see an ecoaudit around this proces. Might be useful in landfills and creates some jobs
That would be cool!
No... No you wouldn't. This plastic is made from distillate lower down the tower then gas or diesel. More pollution when it's burned. It's a cool demonstration but if we all did this the pollution would be horrible.
@@gunrunner5095 you can still crack those distillates
Excellent experiment. Thanks
There is a company in Alabama doing this on an industrial level.. back in January 2020 they shipped a tanker truck of product to a local oil refinery near me.. they ran the product thru some of their refining process, and I was told it was a big success….
Do not use a paint tin for a reactor as they will blow the lid off sooner or later and spray you with burning oil. I got caught by one today and was lucky not to be seriously burnt. As it is I got half of my hair burnt off and some bad blisters on my head and face. It was only a 2 liter can which would have a tighter lid than the bigger cans used. It was on aprox 300 deg C when it blew..
I chose the paint can exactly for the purpose of not being able to build up too much pressure. I would rather have it blow at low pressure, than high. I built my new furnace so the paint can is not exposed, so if it pops it is contained, and I can just extinguish the fire.
999
@Igor Schreiber If the condenser pipe blocks with wax which you get about half way through the process, the pressure builds up and with only say 5 psi you could have around 320 pounds trying to push out the lid. I made a bolt on lid and have had the 3/8" condenser pipe block several times when the condenser is cooling to a low temperature.
@@Henry-zm9qg I was in quite a bad way. The plastic oil was blown everywhere and I used a large fire extinguisher to get the fires out.
Would like to see another burn test on the different stages of solidifying byproduct. Is there perhaps a progression of combust-ability levels? And the oil left in the final looked useful. I wonder what some potential applications might be over other conventional oils. Great video!!
Just about to say a similar thing or even re distill it
I only recently heard that this was possible. Nice job demonstrating this.
Thanks for the video and your efforts
Awesome! Good to know during these "trying times." Might need this trick in the near future... Be safe everyone.
Okay my question is does the liquid on top of the more pure substance burn or not? Also, the solid substance in the same container, does it burn in it's solid state or does it melt then burn?
It melts and the burns like candle wax.
@@torvusjunction I believe it has wax in it. First jar was diesel petrol and wax mix. Second jar was petrol with a little diesel and wax. You can refine the first jar again with your next batch of plastic.
@@torvusjunction Scaled up, I wonder if this could become self-sustaining? Providing enough energy in the most volatile gaseous stuff to keep heating the raw material, then a bit to run a shredder to shred the raw material, with the rest being pure, evil lucre, smelly lucre at that.
I don't know about running a shredder too but look up the Hookway Retort for design info on getting the most out of the heat and gasses in a simple pyrolysis set up.
If you pour out the oil that doesn’t solidify you can start to build up a tank an use it as an alternative fuel source for the future, it’s basically regular petrol at that point
Hello, good afternoon, I am Joseph, a Colombian student. I am investigating this process to be able to do it here in my institution and your video has been very helpful, thank you very much.
I think if you flush the oxygen out of the system be for you start heating it should eliminate or reduce the smell. This is one reason your first jar was so waxy. The way the liquid burned from the first jar, I would recommend running it threw the system again. I think you should be able to get something similar to propane, petroleum/gas, and diesels with just what you are already doing. Temp control and monitor might be the other big thing to consider.
Really want to see what you do next regardless
Just fyi Co2 will not work. It will brake down and cause the same problem. Argon or most inert gas should work
Threw? Brake? Come on
I've seen this done before, using all sorts of plastic, the guy i watched filled up his baking container to the top and squashed out as much air as he could before sealing it, and starting the combustion process, his was connected similar, but with larger pots, the residue after the burn was just soot, this diesel he creates from this process fuels his generator for his electricity ;)
@@gregs8672 nitrogen should be easier to get
@@samsawesomeminecraft nitrogen my create a similar issues with creating wax. NOx?
It took way more fuel to make it than what you got out of it but it was interesting to watch the process 👍🏻
Yes its not efficient, but when shit hits the fan, and no gasoline left at the filling stations you know how to make your own...
Hahahaha imagine that!
Yeah but some people live places where brush is a nuisance
@Sam Fisher you can infact run a car on pine cones and wood. Gasification of wood is done almost the exact same way.
U 100% can run a small engine on a Burning wood gassifier
ok nice, this looks perfect!
I've watched some videos about melting the plastic down and forming it into bricks and boards, which could still be done with the leftover. It is impressive how much can be done with it.
Looks like the hdpe bullet proof plates inside the can drill a few holes and cable them together and you got dragon scale armor. You should send one to taufladermaus so they can shoot it and find out. Something to consider for the aussie's under lockdown. Fight the powers that be.
This is what it takes, try, try again and never give up!
Good job! 👍
Always! Thank you buddy!
Overall very energy-efficient. This method will save the world
a 10cent hose connector would do the trick ;) btw, when you trying to start the fire, put something in the small can and light it, its easier as to light the fluid itself. Thanks for sharing. nice video
This is interesting.
It can be really useful if there are some data, like weight/volume of plastic used, distillate and leftover in pot.
With data it can be seen how good conversion process is.
When I have a finalized version of my setup I will go into details such as efficiency.
@@torvusjunction Great vid. Is there an additive that prevents the fuel returning to a solid/waxy state. I'm assuming the industry uses one. Subscribed👍
@@torvusjunction I was curious about the waxed products whether the liquid was as flammable as before after wax separation ?
It's been tested many times and never found to output more energy than it takes to pyrolize the plastic
@@austin503 But the product is an energy source useful in different ways.
What exactly can this fuel be used for? Nice video by the way, it looks interesting ,(the set up and idea of creating your own fuel.)
That's really interesting.
I recycle milk containers into other plastic products but I never thought of using them for fuel.😁
Gostei desse sistema de reaproveitamento do vapor/gás do próprio subproduto da produção de combustível sintético❤️😎
Houve apenas uma pequena falha no meio do processo, mas o material que importava estava sendo extraído com sucesso total ⚗️😎👍🏻
curious , this is the first time I've seen a fuel collector in front of the condenser? Is there a specific reason for this? I'm just trying to work it all out in my head before I build one myself
I did add a collector there because the condensate has to go somewhere. So instead of the condensate going into the flare, and mixing with the flashback arrestor's water. Its just easier to collect the condensate than to separate it from the water.
@@torvusjunction fair enough , it feels almost like the condenser is pointless at that point.
You could try expelling the oxygen form the system like they do in bigger commercial units . this removes the creation of water in the condenser completely.
Why do you say the condenser is pointless? If it is i'd like to make away with it.
@@torvusjunction because its after the fuel collection. its supposed to literally condense all those smoke vapours you see in your jar back into liquid.
if its after, all its doing is condensing the secondary fumes from your fuel collecting jar.. your cross arm pipe coming from your boiling pot looks like its condensing a lot on its own which is why your getting the wax residue build up in your pipe.
With regards to the wax , I would try to mix other plastic types in your shreddings to the prevent it being so high in volume.
What plastic types would you mix? Perhaps Polystyrene, LDPE? Thanx for replying, I love hearing others opinions and input.
So the first burn test acted like diesel or kerosene and can be used in a lot of similar applications and is safer.
The second test wasn't as volatile as regular gas but i bet my small engines would run on it.
As long as you don't let it sit in carb or gum up your lines you could probably make this usable with a little refining of the process.
Well done sir.
Thank you for sharing.
My pleasure!
On the second stage , is the oil or the residual remains the flammable part or if so both then which more. Also can the first stage be used in any way? Very interesting .
Does it have to be #2 HDPE? I’m wondering if different plastics yield more or less than others.. 🤔
I am aiming to test each of the compatible plastics and then mix them all up to see what the end product is.
@@torvusjunction I tried a diesel wast oil in it and got far better results from it but got a dirty black sludge left. I are going to do more with wast oil as I think it gives better recovery and a lot less work.
You basically made a gassifier. In the 1950s the army corps of engineers made something similar that you could run a gasoline engine with using any wood debris. Since plastic is made from oil it's breaking down into its flammable gasses
Finns used carbon monoxide to power cars during ww2 fuel shortages
Gassification is making a slow resurgence in the prepper community, I power my Toyota pickup with a raw wood gassifier
@@BigBeavrSlayer That's Awesome!
@@offshoreman71 can check out my chanel if you like, just posted a video yesterday running my truck
Is it possible to refine the first stage by distilling it?
Why does it end up solidifying and is it possible to prevent?
Can the solidified extract be used as solid state fuel?
Very interesting indeed! 👍☘️
You should make some pine tree fuel.... Evergreens have lots of fuel on them sticky trees!
Possibly get a shredder, shred the pine cones, press the shredded pine cones into a brick like mold and voila!
@@torvusjunction I'm sure you could use needles or just tap the tree and collect pitch
Pretty neat. Like wood gas, it takes energy to make energy. The question is though, is it a net gain?
In my eyes its a total loss.
I like the famous physicist Richard Feynman’s idea all energy is really just stored sun. When you burn fuel like wood and it makes light it is just releasing stored sunlight because the tree was made from sunlight driving a process to split the oxygen atom of co2 to storing the carbon atom and throwing away the oxygen. When wood burns the oxygen atom meets again in the oxidative process recombining with the carbon to make co2 and CO amd the sunlight is released that was stored. If you think about that transfer from the sun to other forms, there is certainly is energy loss between mediums. The only solution to get energy is a lot of sun and waiting time. XD
@@torvusjunction Somehow the process densifies energy and from wood crap you make liquid fuel that has other usages, so it might not be a total loss. When the cracking process is controlled, concentred solar energy can be used, and stored as fuels from summer to winter.
thanks for sharing your experience
My pleasure
That's promising. 👍
Your bird wildlife sounds are also impressive.
So I have not looked at all the comments and this may have been mentioned but you will increase the output and octane if you fill the first jar with water or another fluid (like corn liquor alcohol) and allow the steam to push it out. The jar before the coil is a "thump beral" and you need to reduce the air in the system to get high output. Also burning your mash of plastic without water at a low temperature is releasing a high volume of gasses (nitrogen, methane, ext) allowing you to have a gasifier but all the combustible gasses are running out. Great for gasification, not distilling. Look up some REAL moonshine stills for some ideas on perfecting your thump beral and worm. Good luck
Even though this is a ton of work, its good to know. If there is a destructive world event, plastics are one of the few things that would remain and could be scavenged in abundance. So, if that happens you would be able to make fuel from it, and become an oil baron in the new world disorder!
Finally someone gets it!
@@juandiego9164 you could heat it with a volcano...
You could refine it, using radioactive material..
I work with the substance at work that is a anticoagulant and the product is called tamol. Not sure if you could get it in the UK or wherever you are located but it prevents liquids from turning back into a solid. However, I think you would take away its flammability. Maybe with the right amount it will anticoagulate without taking away flammability.
Great job! Are there any risiduals when you burn a certain amount completely?
This is stuff 10 11 12 yo pyro me would have done if unsupervised. My friends and I used to burn lots of stuff in a controlled safe fashion because we were boy scouts.
We also volunteered at parks to clear out fallen debris, leaves, needles, branches, to keep forest fires from happening. I guess boy scouts don't do that anymore
I experimented with making plastic fuel before in a very crude setup and I only obtained a tiny amount of brown smelly liquid. I'm hoping that I can learn from seeing other people's attempts. I'd recommend properly distilling the liquids that you have to make a more refined product.
Oh yes, I plan to distill the product to see what I end up with.
I have done the process of burning the plastics and get the dirty smelly oil but I'm confused on how to distill,please advise
I like how you feed the "waste gas" back into the system to make it a little more efficient. Nature is is the pinnacle of efficiency and we with our many wastes will do well to follow suite and make use of our "waste".
I feel like in the future a history book will read "In the modern era they had things called waste, with dumps and trucks to store and move it all over, they didn't know it could be use for..."
Fascinating content and comments.
I love the idea of extracting a burnable fuel from plastic but it seems we are trading one fuel source for another.
Wouldn’t it be cool that you could use the heat of your engine to produce its own fuel from plastic bottles.
Maybe run the exhaust through the middle of the plastic crucible.
It would be like back to the future.
Check out the Hookway Retort. Uses some external fuel but it's minimized by a few means. This is also pyrolysis so some design elements from an efficient charcoal kiln should easily be able to be incorporated. Bit different use of the gasses since you want to collect and condense them in this case but some elements of his design can probably be used.
Aha the genuine mr fusion
It make absolutely no difference if you burn the plastic in the first place, or destill it with the help of huge amounts of energy into a liquid and then burn it. Except that the latter blows more CO2 into the atmosphere due to the additional fuel for the destillery. Nonsense!
NOT burning that stuff at all must be our goal. Transforming old plastic into new plastic with the help of renewable energy sources. But for gods sake don't burn that stuff!
Not true. I’ve done the same thing and powered it from a heating mantle running on solar power.
at the end when you burn the gases do they smell like burning plastic as well when there burning
Really going to look at my comment and not answer back unless you care about the people that are watching your episodes and trying to interact with you trying to get involved more in your little TH-cam Community here to grow your Channel I ain't feeling like that
Now, do this experiment with pine cones in your sealed canister!
hello, we are planning to try this. can we know if there is a certain amount of temperature needed in boiling the plastics?? like if there's a range of temperature needed in the boiling process
You definitely could do with a Cracking Tube added to this set up. Pass the oulet from the pyrloysis tube into a piece of iron pipe packed with steel wool, or turnings, heated directly by the Hotest part of your fire. You Should get a lot more lighter fractions, that way! Also, feed the off-gas (uncondensed fraction) into the fire to help fuel the process.
You have any go to videos for how gasification works from the ground up?
Just cant seem to wrap my head around it.
I have never seen anything like this,
Most of the time people won't show what is left in the container and Diesel solidification
Suggestions : normally people used tha condenser next after the container so it cools down and collect in the next container
Thank you! I will take the suggestion into consideration.
If you took the cleaner oil from stage 2 of your experiment and mixed it 50 - 50 with regular Diesel, would it still solidify when it cools ?
Ótimo vídeo Parabéns 👍
You used so much wood to get so little fuel. The process is interresting fo sure. But how cost/energy effective is this?
Hahahaha it is as effective as it looks...
Well, if your goal is to make an engine running, stuffing pinecones in the gas tank won't do much...
@@aleisterlavey9716 If the gas tank was a wood gasifier, pinecones would work...
@@Scaliadcould also compress all the gas, save it for later and then also use the liquid products.
@@Scaliad yes pinecones for fuel does work buy they burn up rather quickly releasing there energy and leaving the wood hopper empty in need of refueling. Wood is much more energy dense depending on hardwood or soft wood. I run soft Doug fir in my gassifier and it's a good fuel but does not run as long as on hardwood like oak
Very interesting, but how much energy did you spend to get that small amount of fuel? Wouldn't it be more efficient to use the wood in a steam engine?
essentially, the point is to make use of plastic waste that is currently threatening ecosystems and the food chain.
@@h7opolo I think it's a great idea to recycle for sure, but it's my opinion there needs to be a net gain. Maybe this has one and I don't see it. There is obviously a net gain when recycling plastic into other products.
@@shmerd1 the net gain is not purely energetic, the gain comes from recovering and protecting the environment.
You guys are missing the point we need to bury this stuff not burn it and release it into the air. We got it from the ground put it back. As a polymer it mostly inerit when we burn it we add to the carbon problem. Solution stop buying stuff in plastic
Personally I mostly cook out doors on a small wood grill with sticks the gasafier idea is ok as long as you aren't using fossil fuel
It takes more energy (fossil fuel use) to recycle plastic than to make new plastic from virgin oil - capitalist con - no such thing as a free lunch! Being Green means but wasting energy & resources in the first place. (Dot)
Great work
Amazing , you spend more energy to produce less. Good job !
So does this yield justify all the effort that went into it? What is the caloric value of all the biomass burnt and that of the final product? Why not just use steam power?
Depends on local resources and economy.
So what we need is to do this on a industrial scale right next to a coal power plant to offset the use of coal...but how much hydrocarbons does it release....when burned.
to many 😂 in theory sound good but in reality
did you try the solidified substance to see if it can be used as a water repelant/proofing material?
I had the Best Science teacher in 8th grade we did something very simmilar with lawn grass in 1986, Good Stuff :)
I believe that the efficiency would be greatly increased if you also had a system that does the same thing to the smoke from your firewood/pine cones.
I am going to give it a shot!
What a totally Excellent video tutorial. Thanks very much and all the best Torvus Junction.
You are welcome!
Fascinating and well-conceived. Very enjoyable to watch. Next time add some milled pinecone to the plastic being pyrolized. 😜
The input energy may higher than the output energy
The input is probably 10 times more than what is produced yes.
Not at all ! It is one hundred present efficient ! No waist if you put your charcoal back in the machine with more plastic 8 parts and 2 pats of carbon ash back in your burner !
@@MarkChristopherBergeron are you an idiot?
Maybe you can add a second can in the fire to heat the fumes to 500-1000°C, that should crack the long molecules (wax) into shorter ones, so the amount of gasoline like condensate should be higher and maybe you get rid of the wax.
Of course a pipe through the fire will also work, but the cracking process produces carbon buildup and a pipe is hard to clean, therefore the second can which is connected to the first one.
I can give that a try, but I don't want to over complicate. I will try and flush the oxygen out first and see if that helps. If not I will try your idea.
Nice experiment i like this kind of video very interesting just keep on up grading your experiment thank you!
Thank you 😊💣
Basically how oil is produced from our wastes… and how we pay for it.
Though interesting, wouldnt it be more practical to just use the pine cones and materials you used to melt the plastic as the fuel for whatever you needed?
Thats what im thinking. I guess if you really needed fuel in a liquid state this could work. My first thought was using this stuff to make a candle, but then he talked about how bad it smells lol
@@Nagol93 i put some thought into it and cant come up with a situation that justifies the “return on investment”. Unless im just missing something altogether, it just seems to me that it a zero sum game. No matter what time and energy you put into it, you still dont increase the reward.
@@Brykk The law of Thermodynamics is a bitch.
Congratulations... You rediscovered thermal polymerization.
Wonderful for the environment
So ya burned stuff to make more stuff to burn. What are some applications of plastic fuel?