Making a pyrolysis Reactor to make FUEL

[@zero-waste]

Printed Circuit Boards are one of the most problematic raw materials to pyrolyze into Petrol/Diesel/Fuel Oil! Since 2012 I've been a full-time scrapper/recycler/metal-refiner, thus I've gained quite a good insight into the involved chemistry in the many different processes. Brominated Fire Retardants is the huge problem when processing either bare boards or plastic parts from WEEE. Some people mix a little Natrium Carbonate (called Sodium Carbonate, or Soda Ash, in undeveloped countries) or Calcium Carbonate with the shredded material before pyrolyzing it, alternatively they bubble the off vapors through an alkaline solution. Well, it captures some of the Bromine, but far from all! In the other hand, very fine powdered CaO works pretty well. The bare boards contains on average 3% Bromine by weight. The best way to capture Bromine compounds, when pyrolyzing bare boards from PCBs, is to add some powdered Aluminium Oxide (Al2O3, known as Alumina in undeveloped countries) which will capture the Br, and keep it in the residue in the reaction vessel of the pyrolysis unit. Letting the off vapors flow through antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) will remove almost all of the HBr, thus purifying the pyrolysis oil. The bromine can later be recovered from these oxides, and used for Gold recovery. If the intention is to crack the pyrolysis oil into Petrol/Diesel/Fuel Oil, then it's very important to remove all the extremely fine Carbon particles that inevitably will be carried over and contaminate the Raw Pyrolysis Oil, by incorporating a cyclone chamber between the reaction vessel and the condenser of the pyrolysis unit. This is neccessary because these particles will build up and clog the internal cylinder parts of a combustion engine, not to mention completely ruin turbo chargers. A cyclone is very effective in removing such Carbon particles. Be aware that the metal pipe and the cyclone ifself must be well insulated to avoid any condensation of the heavier fraction of the off vapors. I use white ceramic fiber matte, recovered from scrapped bakery ovens. Despite having a ceramic air filtrator capable of separating common air into a stream of Oxygen and a stream of Nitrogen, I use the well known simplest way of flushing the reaction vessel of the pyrolysis unit: Before charging the reaction vessel I just pour a cup of water into it. Upon heating, the water turns into expanding steam that flushes out all air, thereby creating an anaerobic environment in the vessel. 99.9% of PCB boards are brominated, but notice that the plastic insulation on the majority of the electric wires soldered to the boards is brominated too. In addition the insulation is almost always PVC plastic. This means they contain 57% Chlorine. I use the well known hydrometallurgical method (full recovery of the solder) to completely remove not only the wires, but also virtually every single electronic component from the boards themselves (chemical depopulation). The bare boards are then pyrolyzed, and the components are sorted and processed for full recovery of every bit of value from each of even the tiniest electronic component. The thin electric wires are pyrolysed; however, I still struggle quite a bit with removal of all traces of Chlorine from the Raw Pyrolysis Oil.

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks for explanation of the process, BTW, i thought U.S. is a developed country, As i'm aware of ,No one there call Sodium carbonate in a Latin based context .

[@zero-waste]

@@PickyPlans . The mentions of developed/undeveloped countries was meant as a funny touch to the comment. The US, as an example, is generally considered a rather developed country; however, they are in many, many ways far behind Europe. I wanna add that I'm familiar with another way of recovering Bromine from pyrolysis of materials containing Fire Retardants. That's solvent extraction with distilled water in a two step process. This process is not very well suited for amateur/home refiners due to the necessity to very strict temperature control. All of my four pyrolysis units are fuelled with free waste wood, so I can't keep the process within the required temperature limits; at least not for the time being. However, the method is very efficient, cheap, and reasonable fast; if you can control the temperature during the different steps. Also, a slight inconvenience is that the first step needs a considerable higher pyrolysis temperature. Though, I'm considering making improvements and further developments of my pyrolysis units, in order to incorporate means of more precise temperature control, enabling me to use that simple process for Bromine removal. Have you ever thought of dissolving PCBs in Bromine?

[@RANDOMIZE-qk2vk]

That is some insane project you taken on my friend! Congrats with the reactor and many thanks for sharing

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks bunches my friend 🌹♥️

[@bencapobianco2045]

Your projects keep getting better and better!! If you didn’t live on the other side of the planet I would love to hang out with you and share ideas. Keep up the amazing content!!!

[@PickyPlans]

I'm truly grateful to have such a heartwarming friend. Maybe one day we'll be able to make it happen! Thanks, man, for the kind words and for taking the time to watch.

[@MerSadMobasheri-yb7gj]

Perfect 👏👏👏🌹❤️

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks man

[@abdeljalilabdeljalil5135]

Waiting for the second part bro !! Ma shaa Allah!! I built a reactor but i am using wood instead of gas

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks for watching man! Maybe one day I will add the wood option , but now i have some natural gas to burn!

[@Hill-13]

Nice welds , it looks like what we would call s rocket stove . Really nice work picky

[@PickyPlans]

Yes exactly that's what i got the idea from. Thanks for watching man.

[@ImanGoldRecovery]

good job brooo 🌹🌹🌹👍

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks for taking time to watch man❤️🌹

[@l.c.9524]

Really nice work but you must ad some soda ash or calcium carbonate during the process. Otherwise you might have brominated compounds, that apart envoiromental bs they will destroy you engine and give you nasty health problems. Concept wise really cool i think i will still make a good cheap furnace fuel.

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks for your advice my friend , i have the idea of using a Dry Ice fire extinguisher (with a regular installed on it) to flush the system after being evacuated using the vacuum cleaner. Also i plan to refine the fuel chemically and i will make a video on it

[@l.c.9524]

@@PickyPlans Ive built something similar, no need flushing gasyou can use a bit of water that 100 C will flush everything with steam

[@PickyPlans]

Ah, thanks for the tip!

[@zero-waste]

@@l.c.9524 . Please read my comment to this video. Feel free to reply if you would like to discuss further and share experiences.

[@abdeljalilabdeljalil5135]

Still waiting for the second part

[@ayhamhafez285]

Amazing welding skills

[@PickyPlans]

Thanks man♥️

[@abdeljalilabdeljalil5135]

I told you !!​@@PickyPlans

[@orlyk.9217]

Hello! As a British Petroleum employee, I'm deeply concerned! Please delete this video!

[@PickyPlans]

May I politely inquire as to the reason? I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

[@orlyk.9217]

@PickyPlans its a joke, lol

[@knowldedge5012]

@@orlyk.9217 funny, tell them that Brexit was a bad idea

[@abdeljalilabdeljalil5135]

​@@orlyk.9217not funny