# CEDP 2012 Gakona's Plastic to Oil Machine



## justinhcase (Sep 22, 2015)

I found this little bit of kit.
If it means turning plastic at £25 a tun into fuel £1.10 a liter it is worth looking at.
This is the first table top unit suitable for small operations I have seen.
£25 a tun means in Devon you pay to have it taken away as the run to a recycler will cost more than £25 in transport.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vhvogn49riI


----------



## Grelko (Sep 24, 2015)

This is very interesting. 

It looks like they're using bioplastic materials, which can be turned into biodiesel. If it's the other types of plastic, the machine might be breaking it back down to the raw materials like crude oil, natural gas, plant cellulose etc, and converting it to fuel that way.

Reminds me of the movie Back to the Future 2, with "Mr. Fusion" on the car.


----------



## g_axelsson (Sep 24, 2015)

I'm really skeptical to this. The thought of just dry distilling plastic would break it down to a fuel that doesn't wreak havoc with the engine in a short while seems too good to be true. And they didn't show the carbonized residues left in the reactor after processing.

If it was that easy then recycled plastic would be in high demand all over the world to supply the local petrol or diesel refinery. Since we haven't seen a huge amount of small plants popping up I think there is little hope for the near future that this would work as claimed.

Göran


----------



## mjgraham (Sep 24, 2015)

I thought of Mr. Fusion as well, I just wonder, sure you make fuel of some sort but how much power does it take to do that. It does not make much sense to me to make $2 of fuel and use $10 of electricity, kind of like my bitcoin mining days finally got to.


----------



## MarcoP (Sep 25, 2015)

It works. Whatever comes out smell and burn like petrol derivatives. The end product vary depending on the feedstock, working temperature and probably other factors. Sometime it burns like gasoline, others like diesel, other times resemble gasoline mixed with oil like what old 50cc used to use. Lawn mower, oil lamp, incinerator/pyrolysis are all good uses for the end product(s).

Awful smell unless its a closed reaction. For now I've opted for a after burner, later on will try again to get something useful out of pyrolysis fumes. For us, it's a byproduct.

Marco


----------



## Anonymous (Sep 25, 2015)

I like the idea but what's the actual cost of the process in terms of fuel/electricity per litre returned?


----------



## justinhcase (Sep 25, 2015)

I suppose the best way to run it would be with on of thous small old single cylinder diesel generator's.
Use to have one on the farm that only detonated every second or so,it would run on straight cooking oil and kerosene, kid you not.
That way if it produced a surplus you would be in business. :roll: 
A similar system using some of the volatile gas's to heat the system would be much more economical.
May be not now ,but in fifty years when the natural oil field's run out these compounds will become much more valuable. 
At the moment we are basically burning Rembrandt's to keep warm.
There are some fairly large plant's coming on line.http://www.plastic2oil.com/site/home
May be the technology to run such system's safely and the economical imperative to do so might meet each other quite soon.
If it douse we may add plastic oil mines to the plan's to open old dump site's for metal reclamation.http://www.enviroalternatives.com/landfill.html


----------



## g_axelsson (Sep 25, 2015)

That looks more like it, but still there must be problems with the process and not as easy as they claims on the website.

In 2011 they secured a 10 year contract for turning plastic into fuel from the waste coming from a large paper mill.
http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/08/plastic2oil-waste-plastic-fuel/

In four years that should have been enough to show a working process if it was working without problem, but since 2012 there have been no news coverage. If the process was working fine it would be an epic fail from the company board to end up in such a news blackout.
http://www.plastic2oil.com/site/news-room

A company never writes about problems. I've been reprimanded by my boss for letting our customers know too much of the truth about our products, and that was when we found a fix to a problem. To think that another company would be much better is just naive. So... what are they hiding?

A bit of digging gives : ( http://www.plastic2oil.com/site/news-releases-master/2013/08/15/jbi-inc-announces-initial-third-quarter-2013-fuel-production-files-form-10-q-for-second-quarter-2013-announces-board-and-governance-changes-and-3-million-secured-debt-commitment )


> The Company produced 43,814 total gallons of fuel in the second quarter of 2013, compared to 68,569 gallons produced in second quarter 2012, a 36.1% decrease. Total cost per gallon was $2.43 per gallon, compared to $1.23 per gallon for the second quarter 2012, representing a 98.2% increase in cost per gallon. Readers are encouraged to review the Company’s Form 10-Q in its entirety, including the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.”


And that is after they doubled the production a year earlier... from 2 tons to 4 tons per hour, that should be approximately 1000 gallons per hour so the quarter production represents 44 hours of production in three months.

For production number see http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2012/03/27/plastic2oil-doubles-production where they claim they process 4000 pounds per hour at 24 hours per day so actually it is two days running as planned in three months...

I would say they still have some problems.

An interesting note is when someone shows how easy it is to refine gold from scrap in a youtube video we all say don't believe everything on youtube, but when someone is making diesel from plastic scrap I'm the only one skeptical... :mrgreen: 

Göran


----------



## macfixer01 (Sep 25, 2015)

spaceships said:


> I like the idea but what's the actual cost of the process in terms of fuel/electricity per litre returned?




That was my question also. This takes hours of electrical heating to process what may be at best a few pounds of plastic? At this scale it appears nearly useless except for demonstration of the concept.


----------



## butcher (Sep 25, 2015)

How much oil and energy does it take to make all of that plastic trash, and then how much energy to change the trash back to oil, seems to me like a loosing process energy wise, maybe we should look at a more renewable source of (containers) trash we can burn for fuel.

I do find it an interesting process, but I wonder if just burning the plastic for fueling directly in a boiler for steam power or electricity... would not be just as, or more energy efficient, if we are going to use the plastic trash for fuel.


----------



## Grelko (Sep 26, 2015)

justinhcase said:


> I suppose the best way to run it would be with on of thous small old single cylinder diesel generator's.
> That way if it produced a surplus you would be in business. :roll:



That's what I was thinking also. If the machine that makes the fuel from plastic could use that same fuel to run itself, then whatever was left over would be all profit. 

Then again, what type of waste is being produced from it?, unless there isn't any waste and 100% of the material processed is being turned into fuel, which I highly doubt.



MarcoP said:


> For now I've opted for a after burner, later on will try again to get something useful out of pyrolysis fumes. For us, it's a byproduct.
> 
> Marco



Wouldn't there be a way to capture the pyrolysis fumes in a steam chamber that has the bottom open, with a channel built into the side and a fan blowing the steam+ fumes down the side into a bucket of water? The micro particles that are in the fumes would get caught within the steam and get pushed into the side wall where they would collect and roll down into the bucket. Even a type of fog machine could potentially work, but I'm not sure on the efficiency or cost.

After that, you could evaporate the solution and recover what's left, which would mainly be carbon I believe (Carbonated water :lol: )? Isn't there a way to turn carbon into a crude oil type substance, or compress it into charcoal, it would take alot though.

Don't mind the horrible drawing, doing this on a computer isn't my forte.


----------



## MarcoP (Sep 26, 2015)

Grelko, in fact the flammable liquid produced was dirty from those particles, I will need a way to clear it from those before the fumes gets in the water or filter the combustible. In the last few days I had the idea to use the filter used in diesel engine tanks and I could get those for free from car wreckers. Burning fumes were smoky and somewhat stinky!

I'm not sure to understand your idea, but that's just me and later on I will surely get it, I wouldn't mind to produce a decently clean and usable byproduct for free.

Marco


----------



## Grelko (Sep 26, 2015)

MarcoP said:


> Grelko, in fact the flammable liquid produced was dirty from those particles, I will need a way to clear it from those before the fumes gets in the water or filter the combustible. In the last few days I had the idea to use the filter used in diesel engine tanks and I could get those for free from car wreckers. Burning fumes were smoky and somewhat stinky!
> 
> I'm not sure to understand your idea, but that's just me and later on I will surely get it, I wouldn't mind to produce a decently clean and usable byproduct for free.
> 
> Marco



If you can get a screen with a small enough mesh to filter those particles out before they get to the bucket, you could collect the diluted flammable liquid in the bucket and the particles in the screen. It would probably need to be a type of hepa filter to capture the dust particles, but I don't know how well those work with liquids.

I'm wondering if you could distill the liquid, you'd have to be very careful since it's flammable, maybe in a hermetically sealed container, but I'm not sure about the pressure buildup or the possibility of it igniting just from being heated.


----------



## kurtak (Sep 27, 2015)

butcher said:


> I do find it an interesting process, but I wonder if just burning the plastic for fueling directly in a boiler for steam power or electricity... would not be just as, or more energy efficient, if we are going to use the plastic trash for fuel.



That is exactly what the company I took a few loads of circuit boards to (for processing) - besides incinerating circuit boards they also incinerate their X-ray film

They start the incineration on the X-ray film with natural gas & then use the heat & volatile gas from the X-ray film as part (the start) of the board incineration - then finish the board incineration with natural gas

Kurt


----------



## Anonymous (Sep 27, 2015)

I guess if you went for the wood gas fueled generator to provide the electricity or a solar array that provided enough wattage for the heater then it might actually work out but without some amazingly cheap and efficient source of power I honestly can't see the benefit beyond it being a "green" gimic.

Add to that the legal implications, (people making their own petrol and diesel) given that people sue for anything at all in the US these days even if the accident is their own fault and it becomes even more unrealistic for a home user application.

Having said all that I do believe that it's a great idea. As an idea it just needs more refining (I can't tell you guys how long I've wanted to use that line :lol: :lol: :lol: )

Jon


----------



## 4metals (Sep 27, 2015)

I would think the "green" thing to do is keep the carbon sequestered as plastic!

Unless you use clean nuclear power to power it, that keeps your carbon footprint in check.


----------



## patnor1011 (Sep 28, 2015)

Nuclear power appear clean only if you have deep shaft where you can dump your waste. Or convenient little war where you can dispose most of it as depleted uranium ammo. Does not look too clean in Fu*k-you-shima. :mrgreen:


----------



## Anonymous (Sep 28, 2015)

patnor1011 said:


> Nuclear power appear clean only if you have deep shaft where you can dump your waste. Or convenient little war where you can dispose most of it as depleted uranium ammo. Does not look too clean in Fu*k-you-shima. :mrgreen:



That wasn't waste that was reactor cores being cracked. That's a completely different scenario. Would you be surprised if you were told that 2000 nuclear bombs had been detonated on this planet so far? I can assure you Pat that those have far more environmental impact than the Japanese or Russian nuclear power plants combined and probably multiplied by a factor of 1000.


----------



## patnor1011 (Sep 29, 2015)

I know about testing but majority was done underground. I would favor solar and geothermal before current fission reactors and nuclear energy as much greener.


----------



## justinhcase (Sep 29, 2015)

patnor1011 said:


> I know about testing but majority was done underground. I would favor solar and geothermal before current fission reactors and nuclear energy as much greener.


liquid thorium reactor's look very interesting.
I bet some member's would have interesting thing's to say about that.
But on the positive side world radioactive contamination has one growth industry for scrap metal men.
"Low-background steel" I know two different diver's that have been used to recover steel form old war wreck's.
That cobalt-60 get's every where except steel forged before The Trinity Test.


----------



## Anonymous (Sep 29, 2015)

patnor1011 said:


> I know about testing but majority was done underground. I would favor solar and geothermal before current fission reactors and nuclear energy as much greener.



Sit back for 5 minutes and watch this Pat. Your jaw will probably drop mate.....

Who would want to live in the west of the US after seeing this is beyond me. They've detonated over 1032 nuclear bombs on their own soil....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY


----------

