Sounds like the start of another playlist. How to make your own autoclave with minimal tools, what happens when you hydrothermal carbonize old tires, how to store the various products of hydrothermal carbonization and what you can make from them, the list just goes on and on. Hope this is the start of a long series 😁.
@@yonkromis7883 Proper tire pyrolysis yields a diesel grade fuel and carbon black, which has many industrial uses, along with steel belts for other industrial uses.
@@brianwesley28 correct I worked with Rodger Jailer building a prototype plant in the UK several years back, I think Firestone bought the patent. It was really interesting work, and quite simple.
Yes! Excites me. Yes! I’ve considered it… wanted to do this experiment for years now. I didn’t realise it had more uses then plastic to fuel. Thanks again!! The energy we need is all around us Ultimate recycling and sustainability!
One was an engineer, the other a car guy who once worked for Hiram Percy Maxim, making mufflers for cars. Can’t help but think they would have liked the idea.
A few years ago there was a few companies that were building plants to pyrolysis plastics into fuel. For some reason they have quietly gone away. It seemed like a great idea as the systems could use some of the waste gas to power the heater after it was started.
pyrolysis and HTC are different mate - with pyrolysis you get a lot of tar - with HTC not so much - it would be an interesting thing to see how tyres would do in this set up
i.e. Licella - at least this past year they were announcing some forest product company (CANFOR) to process wood waste. Still waiting for a chance to license it and build a landfill-powered station.
There was a proposal around 2014 to build a plant next to the new London Gateway port. It was going to make aviation fuel from waste. "British Airways and American-owned fuel production firm Solena Fuels Ltd have located a site in Thurrock, Essex for the development of a gasification facility to turn commercial and industrial waste into aviation fuel". Lots of local objections around the amount of traffic it would create on local roads. The Thurrock one never happened, but Velocys have planning permission for one in Lincolnshire.
I think this would be the best use. Storing energy from a renewable source. It must take use a lot of energy for this process so no point in burning stuff we already have just to make a bit more
Organic "Gasifiers" have always intrigued me even when thinking of off grid power generation. There are commercial products out there selling for thousands of dollar for this very thing!
In the US there are fiberglass satillite tv dishes left over from the 80's. I have thought they would make great solar collectors but did not have a good use for all that heat. Now I do.
@@ThinkingandTinkering I suppose that the energy needed might cancel out what you gained depending on what you were aiming for,my thoughts were converting an acre or so of weeds into fuel for a tractor or truck etc...
This guy reminds me of a less caustic version of Julius Sumner-Miller. It's great to see the internet doing something really worthwhile - in the form of allowing his channel a wider audience - for a change.
There are specific types of biochar kilns that will capture the volatile gasses to either send it back to the kiln or to capture for use in other purposes . As mentioned in your video there are extras in the liquid and gasses , including pyrolignious acid , when watered down is a fertiliser that can be added back to the biochar As a heat source there’s potential to use the device as a heat source for electricity generation , sterling engines ….. etc The biochar industry needs this as there’s too much carbon in the atmosphere
Could you do a series where you combine this with the wood gassifier design from world war II were they used to run vehicles with wood and instead use plastic? Obviously the technology would need to be updated and the design would be different. But running your vehicle, generator, etc. on plastic would be awesome!
Hi Robert, you've mentioned that you can tune up the process to maximize the amount of alcohols produced. Are there ball park pressure and temperature numbers, (a range, or different numbers for plastic/human/animal-waste)? Alternatively, can you point me to the relevant papers(s) on this subject? I wasn't able to find this particular information (yet:). Thank you.
RU-vid channel NatureJab had built a few microwave autoclave machines. He microwaves plastics into fuel. Same concept. It's worth checking out if you are interested in the subject. He microwaves it and then distills the liquid portions. And he gets a fuel. Very cool
I was just going to point that out!! He doesn't use high pressure though, just microwaves as an efficient direct heat source and carbon as a susceptor ...
Going back to my scuba diving days (about 25-30 years ago) your talking about 20 metres under water. That is a very achievable pressure from the most simple pressure cooker, even a simple home made pressure vessel. Then you mentioned coal or brickettes. This seems to be a simple home made experiment.
Would need to modify/change the pressure relief valve on home pressure cooker. I wouldn't suggest the avg home tinker to try such in kitchen device. A vessel failure could do serious harm, even at 30psig. At 150psig hot acid vapor and shrapnel would be a bomb. The Boston marathon bomber used dry ice in a pressure pot with the psv blocked if I remember correct
it is mate - we have done it before - but like JM says care is needed and for someone not used to this sort of stuff rated equipment would probably be the best idea - or at least stick some sand bags around it and resist the urge to peer in !!
Years ago in an organic chemistry class we put sawdust into test tubes and added heat from a Bunsen burner. Because the tube was relatively oxygen free the wood didn’t burn. But once the moisture boiled off it emitted volatile gases which flowed down a tube to a pipette where we burned them in a constant flame. The material left in the tube was mostly pure carbon, which of course is also burnable. I think this is similar to what happens in efficient wood burners like rocket mass heaters. Instead of unburned hydrocarbons going up the chimney they are burned. I worked with a researcher who wrote a paper about turning plastics into fuel. Years later I saw someone else doing just that at an energy fair. He started by demonstrating dissolving LOTS of Styrofoam with acetone, ie fingernail polish remover. But for more complicated plastics he used a device, probably similar to this one, to create a type of diesel fuel. That was several years ago so I’m surprised I haven’t seen it commercialized.
I'm not surprised. The most wealthy people in this world, have an agenda, and that agenda doesn't include us being energy independent, but as dependent as is possible.
It is a very interesting video but when it comes to the human waste aspect I had heard of a different way that someone had done it where instead of using acid they instead use a lot of pressure to turn water into super steam that would break down the organic into carbon in a very similar way.
I think it depends a bit on your skill level - the actual process is something undergrads would tackle - and mechanically they are sometimes not the best lol
@@ThinkingandTinkering yes only a minority have the skill and more importantly the time to do this at home. It’s very much an inconvenience when you can just buy a more useful fuel
The big question is that will be asked by business interest who expect to make lots of lolly, IS: "Are we going be making said mucho lolly in this venture, or are we just spending money to reduce pollution and "save the planet", or not make a damn thing, because that just won't fly?"
Not quite Mr Fusion! LoL not yet anyway. But interesting idea and a way to store energy in the biomass . Would be great for off grid situation and you could heat your house on charcoal briquettes and power your car on biodiesel!!
no mate it has to be a mineral acid - sulphuric, nitric, phosphoric - which kind of makes sense as an organic acid would just hydrothermally carbonise - anyway it is a weak solution
Nitric acid is the easiest to get a constant supply of at home. You essentially just need a plasma coil in a completely sealed glass container with an air intake from an aquarium bubbler. The outtake is just several tubes of water filtering the gas through which collects the nitric acid, The end of the line to let the air out is just let out into a line that goes outside the building. You're going to want proper ventilation in case anything is leaking, which is always a concern as the gas itself is toxic. Processing can take a good week or two depending on your water containers. You can check concentration using pH test strips. The first few containers should be high concentration which you can water down as needed. The system needs to have a good supply of renewable power for itself to keep it going otherwise your hydro bill is going to rack up. I would also do your research before actually attempting and not take my word for it.
@@ThinkingandTinkering Thank you for all of your videos. You are an inspiration. I do wonder if you had an aerobic digester, could you use the sulphur acid from that in the hydrothermal carbonization process?
I did not know that anything like this was possible until I saw that bio-diesel was something one could make in a survival video game called Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead. Though I do not think one can make fuel from plastic or manure in that game.
I'm interested in achieving this process in the hopes that less plastic waste will be dumped into ocean, and at the same time making use of all the other bi-products used in this process. I sure miss having a fish dinner without being exsposed to less mercury.
@@Spiritman597 Right, there are some plastics that cannot be recycled. Hopefully we can use hydrothermal carbonisation to convert those into mercury free carbon, since burning coal apparently accounts for a little under a quarter of the mercury we put into the environment.
I love the idea, although I didn't hear anything about the overall numbers in regards to the amount of energy exspense that it takes to actually heat up the acid/compost mixture in order to make it viable.
Fantastic! I'm interested in your comment on making your own autoclave. Is there a chance to see a video on that topic for we DIY minded sort? I think scavenging parts for that would be a treat.
Gasifier from a pressure vessel of any type. Probably best would be a tall acetylene, oxygen tank cut with a pressure cooker head welded on top for filling.
Or a combination of the two. Solar when available. And Induction using a generator using steam (use the coal or anything to heat the water to run the generator) I like the idea of cleaning up GARBAGE and get rid of those FOREVER particals
In order to use Solar for this process, you really would have to optimize it. Paint it the blackest black that you can, use Solar concentrators though you wouldn't want to point a very pointed parabolic beam at it, but use a more diffuse/larger area "beam". Alternatively, using vacuum insulation around it would help a lot (and you could probably forgo larger, more involved solar concentrators). It is not too hard to make vacuum insulated, mostly glass panels, but it is somewhat expensive as you need high quality, strong and thick glass for this application. (Easier and cheaper to do, would be to use glass jars, and once sealed with the vacuum pulled, put it upside down over the tube). Another option to use Solar, is to get a good size Solar panel, and then hook it up directly to resistive/heating type wire, and wrap the tube with it, and then put a bunch of insulation (rockwool would be the best) around it.
Build a cheap incineration toilet! There is a huge market because the existing models are quite expensive (2.000 - 4.500 $) and it is interesting for off grid living and cheaper house building. In one of her annual reports BASF wrote about a project of recycling plastics in this way but that was it. I never heard of it again. We could collect plastic waste for conversion to gas the same way we collect paper or glass. In Germany the plastic waste is collected once a month in a yellow plastic bag ("Wertstoffsack") but as far as I am informed this material is not recycled as they say but instead burned.
Thats truly brilliant!!! But how easy is it to make a small scale for home use autoclave bio-digester?? I think farmers use something similar for cow / pig poo, but I'd love to see how to build one, but I just can't get my head round it.
Yep, the old Mother Earth News had article back in 70s showing the composting of chicken dung on the farm to produce methane gas which could be used to power all the utilities on the farm. Don't be fooled, these are very old ideas being piece mealed out with folks making claim for 'discovery. Sorry, nothing new under the sun, so find everything in plain sight with open eyes.
I believe Robert has some videos on it. Essentially you can use a stainless steel tube with threads on both ends with some strong SS caps, from plumbing supplies. You do have to be careful with the temps and times, because these homemade ones can't handle the pressure levels of the specifically built autoclaves. To be on the safe side, one could heat it within a matrix of sand or the like, so that if does explode, it would be less likely to cause damage. And if you're going to go that route, it might be more efficient to wrap it directly with resistive/heating wire (then apply a DC current), put some fiberglass or rockwool insulation around it, and then put it in the sand box.
have to wonder about how practical it is for the average hobbyist + how much net energy you can hope to harvest (once you subtract the energy you have to put into the process + the cost of acid)
This is interesting but I think a more efficient simpler method would be using low pressure version like a nasa toilet design. This could get the job done without requiring the autoclave or the acid, it also requires less heat but might produce large quantities of natural gas, some of which could be used to run the system.
Another very interesting and informative video... What would occur with .....nuclear waste ... Even lightly contaminated such as is presently put in drums and stored ??? Thom in Scotland.
Hi Robert I have an important question! Why not do hydrothermal Liquidation instead of htc? Also how do I build an htl/htc reactor ? Thanks for your amazing work!
Or possibly aluminum. I saw a video on Action Lab where he used gallium to retrieve some of the energy used to smelt the aluminum without gallium loss.
Fuel is one of the fields i find challenging in a self sufficientcy situation... So thanks! What pressure do we need for this to work? I've got a bunch of spent mushroom mycelium on straw and wood chips and a big 15 psi pressure cooker...
doing it in water allows for 1: saving the time/energy of drying your feedstock, and 2: keeping all the organic bits in the liquid product: in the absence of water, they would volatilize and be lost as gases.
Awesome mate you have me hooked with this one ! So we can burn the coal in the log burner but what can we do with the liquid 🤔 sell it ? Refine it more ? Is it cost efficient? Oh so many questions
10-50 PSI? Almost sounds like one could fabricate something out of a standard water heater, if one had the skills and machinery to make the hatch. I'd really prefer stainless for this, though. I'd make sure I had multiple pressure relief valves on them, though. One for release of pressure during normal operations, and 3-4 others at different levels: Top, bottom, and split the heights, something in there will hopefully bleed. I'd also have them feeding into a water bath, FAR from the heat source in case it's venting flammable gas. And WELL ventilated, as in, outside. I'd also build a blast wall to hide behind. And after a quick Google Shopping-Fu, plug-in autoclaves of 10~ish liters capacity can be had for like 80 bucks US. The one I looked at is preset for 120 C, and 15 PSI. Which should work.
Cool😍 Olmost onoccupayïng space in motion😍 As the liquids. Tray to put some of this to fuce diverend metals and see wat is happening 😍🙏😍 Like mi ch3 depletion water was match lesser negative Bit maby yours is less negative inof to do it with same cind of melats 🙏😍🙏
Using human or animal waste,will this process deal with medications? Sounds like something that we should be doing, energy positive,no poop in waterways.
Seems like a useful way to use excess renewable energy to produce carbon to sequester or use to nourish soil, whilst producing a usable fuel. All whilst employing a net reduction in greenhouse gas.
Seems like a cool way to make highly porous carbon structures (not sure about the proper name) from polystyrene. Edit: Not sure if the "aerated" structure will be retained under these conditions though.
Don't see the point when you can directly use the car oil as a fuel, and if you can use a system that has efficient secondary combustion, you'll burn off most of the pollution/toxins.
@@ThinkingandTinkering exceed the **pressure safety/relief valve** - sorta like a check valve but in industry at least, we can't swap check valves for PSV's. Psv is the only safe option, has alot to do with how they relieve pressure at 5-10% of set point as well as reseal once below
You could you lies a concentrated solar dish which is like a 10 ft satellite dish covered with mylar or something similar or a large frenzel lens to produce the heat for boiling that way it would not take a lot of energy to do it I would take a lot of electricity or wood or something to boil that for hours
a method using quartz spheres and coating them in strontium oxide, put in vegetable oil. bombard with klystron. the microwave radiation makes it biodiesel without harmful chemicals
Looking to do this on my boat as part of enviro cleanup / self-sufficiency. Lots of cruisers collect trash, but they send it to the landfill when they reach town again. If there was a solution (autoclave / pyrolysis / ???) that turned trash into diesel, it would solve 2 problems.
Was much inspired but this video...more then the last few(being truthful)...Now lawn clippings. TONS! are generated, assuming more than human wast, what difference would be needed to convert such into reusable fuel? SoMax HTC sounds like a stock tip. Am not into such..but feel like it is a great investment. remembered Microsoft or Amison?...best DVD:)
Hello sir, is this method same as normal pyrolisis of plastic? I think almost yes, but normal pyrolisis dont use pressure, your method yes. What is difference in results? Yelds? Is product same liquid? Thank you for answers
The problem I see is firstly, how much energy is being used to create that heat and pressure. Secondly, with regard to fluorinated long chain organic molecules, free fluorine can be a very dangerous chemical (quite safe when in a long chain molecule, but very dangerous in many other circumstances). How safe would the breakdown products of these substances from an autoclave be?
Speak English ya bloody limey! Sorry, just kidding. I get all my English friends riled up with that line. Great video. Very informative. I am subscribing now.
one point some may try, Vinegar as the acid. The results will vary greatly as the Ph and chemical composition of various types of even the same brand and type will be different between batches. The companies can get away with it as it just has to be ' food grade ' and not Chemical grade, which will have to be measured in percent molar solution or pure powders. In the late 90s I was sent a RU-vid link to a similar aparatus that bubbled the heated vapours through water and any excess waste gasses could be burned to heat the chamber and reduse the fuel used. This is also the basis of Gasifyers ( spelling??) that has use running cars by burning waste wood products ( without the acid as they use wood types that are naturally acidic as the compost ). As usual great video, good pictures to describe the process. Next step would be checking local regulations on what constitutes a ' still ' or distillary regulations and research if you can make something thatbwould be practical to add to the rocket stove.
Hi Robert - We just did a Live stream phone in on solar systems - see youtube Andy Wright Talking Really - If you are free please come and join the live stream next Sunday 4pm to 6pm
There was a pilot plant in pop science 2004 ment to turn 200 tons of turkey plant waste into 80 barrel of oil a day. Still do not know why it didn't work out
