by Zarquon » Thu 06 Dec 2018, 23:49:24
I've read some more in this old 2010 thread I mentioned above and I don't know what kind of forum this really is, but it's amazing. First, the amount of interest this post about how to refine your own fuel from garbage got. 146 pages, last post from this year. One guy responds who claims he's been driving for over a year now with homemade fuel from plastics.
Second, the almost total ignorance of some people. The more you read, the more you want to tear your hair out:
"Can I use a pressure cooker?"
"Can I use an old electric stove?"
"Have you tried shredded CDs/DVDs?"
"Thanks! I'm thinking about starting a business making and selling this fuel. Can somebody here advise me on the legal stuff? There might be some issues, but I don't know."
"If you use PVC, any way (not necessarily EPA-approved) to somehow vent chlorine gases?"
"The recycling firm asked £400 for a ton of shredded PE. That's how corporate interests try to prevent us from making our own fuel! Conspiracy!"
"Hey, I need some questions to be answered regarding plastic conversion back to biofuel, mind helping?"
"My first batch did not heat well. The tank I used was a 25 gallon air compressor tank and with only a few inches of barrel to insulate it; it was not enough. I was using sand and fiberglass and a simple propane weed torch for the heat."
"I used to do a little work at a plastics recycling plant, in the UK, that made plastic garbage cans. His whole plant ran off fuel he made but he never told me how he did it."
"What if I filled the reactor with the wood shavings and then filled the rest with used motor oil, would I then be able to make this work?"
"Has anyone done anything with ABS plastics (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene (number 7 on the resins identification scale)? It may be off topic here but has anyone attempted a similar thermal de-polymerization process with waste motor oil/transmission oil."
"The fuel oil goes into my furnace usually mixed with used motor oil or vegetable oil that i get for free and the same into my Listeroid 16/1 diesel engine running a 12kw china st gen head making about 10Kw."
"Hi to all, This is what I am doing. It is in principal the same as with the plastic, but I am using waste motor oil. No temperature control, insulation or any safety devices! Do not inhale the fumes if you want to try this!"
"I dit somme testing with eps isomo,disolve in aceton is fast but 3€ for 1 liter. So I dit a test with 200° hot cookingoil(wvo)and it disolv fast like aceton. I will do some more testing with old plastic flowerpots nobody wants."
"These are just my thoughts and when I get back home on the 15th I will get to work on it and let you know if it worked or not and if I don't right back that means things went horribly wrong and I am to embarrassed to admit my mistake or it went kaboom and I no longer have to worry about energy."
"Would it address this if i 'bubbled' the exhaust from such a burning through something, to capture the dioxin.If so, then what do I do with it?"
"scares the living be#@$& of every one and doesn't follow up with his assumptions about Dioxins escaping into the atmosphere...if you are out there come in with some scientific proof and set our minds at rest...could be a sitin from the petro company's scarring us ..."
"An addon project would be to try putting together an engine which could utilise this unadulterated fuel to its full potential. An engine that could do 200 miles to the gallon (be it US gallons (≈ 3.79 L) or UK ones (4.55 L)), would really make the container store go a long way."
"Do you think you could just pour concrete in around the chamber as an insulator?"
FREE FUEL! LIKE, FOR FREE! FREE! Then all higher brain functions lock up. I'm only on page 6 now, and that's the first time somebody there mentions dioxin and that it's probably not too good for your health. Or other people's health. Not that many people responded to that, with FREE FUEL on their mind. Apart from the idea of total amateurs handling gasoline fumes heated to 400°C while burning off the propane...
Makes me wonder how many people are already doing this.
P.S: Apparently, the OP did this in Latvia, not Indonesia.
P.P.S: A picogram of dioxin is considered a dangerous amount of carcinogens. By burning this fuel in your car or furnace you don't destroy it, you just spread it around the neighborhood in a very fine mist. But you know there's no risk because the guy from the garbage company told you the plastic he sold you is clean.