Almost all the small independent garages around here have waste oil heaters and use the oil to heat the shops. I think the only place to get quantities of waste oil would be the oil change places and they have established sources that collect their oil. Getting 50 gallons might be harder than getting a thousand.
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I dont think that is correct.
A micron is a mico metre. One thousanth of a millimetre. That is, it takes 25.4 microns to equal one thousanth of an inch.
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You are right Andy. I have heard it referred to as that. I just looked it up. Average hair is 70 Microns(±). I actually heard that from a person in the filtration business. Don’t trust the salesman. lol
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When I still had a lathe I was going to melt down a bunch of aluminum and cast a large plate and then turn it down to work as a centrifuge plate. Didn’t really need to make diesel. I just wanted to see if I could make the plate.
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Refineries seem to universally produce toxic ick, plastic to fuel refining seems to have the same issue.
Refining wood into char is as toxic a process I care to deal with personally.
Molding plastic at relatively low temperatures is a cleaner process.
I would love to recycle plastic into large water proof sheets, both opaque and translucent.
I’ve seen one project making plastic roof tiles with heat provided by simple rocket stoves.
It was a Jon and Flip Anderson related project.
They have done a lot of work with mud and sawdust rocket stoves that are fired like pottery.
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We use quite a bit of plastic bottles this way int he trucks all the time. Not to
mention any other trash we gather while travelling.
When I was at the university I worked in a mechanic shop. our only heat was from a waste oil burner. commercially made.
down here, very few have these systems. We just don’t have the winter to contend with like northerners do. 1000 is better than 50. If you’re going to do anything, you better be prepared to do it by the thousands instead of the tens.
We did something similar with roof tiles and also stepping stones/floor tiles. Talk about a toxic process…It’s pretty nasty stuff. and flamable in the process…LOL. One of the best fireballs I ever produced came out of a plastic smelter making tiles out of milk jugs…LOL …You really have to watch the oxygen cracks in those 
Ok, so I made it through this thread, but not the rest of them. My father-in-law has pneumonia, and my dad. I’m feeling something similar. so I’m going to bed.
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Rest easy Billy, we all hope your feeling better soon!
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Actually the last local mechanic shop that I was at that did a lot of oil changes has those, BUT because our states requires collecting used motor to keep people from dumping it. They may not be able to use them anymore because of the accounting that needs to be done because you know darn well people would say “oh yeah yeah, we just burned that in the heater snickers”
I have also seen a number of foundries that use waste oil burners.
I also figured out that my new, but extremely cheap, temp controlled soldering iron/hot air gun actually does an okay job welding and shaping plastic. You get to turn the temp way down, and it melts instead of burns. And a lot easier then glue for me at least. 
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I would make use of trash/plastic/waste oil etc in two stages.
First put the material in a heating chamber next to but separate from the gasification chamber. Vent the heating chamber into the hearth to process vapors. The temperature of the hearth should breakdown anything chemically toxic. Anything “atomically toxic” like heavy metals would still be an issue and so care should be taken with used motor oil, batteries, metallic trash and the like that might contain chrome, zinc, lead, cadmium, mercury, etc.
As a second stage, clean out the the crud left over in the heating chamber and contribute it to the next charcoal charge. It should be cooked enough to use as fuel directly.
Basically what I am describing is a trash “retort”. It would add bulk to the gasification setup and so better suited to a stationary generator configuration vs vehicle mounted.
I would guess that most off grid / gasification folks aren’t part of the “throw away” culture anyhow and so wouldn’t have that much to get rid of but why not use it.
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You don’t need to do that, you need basically a pot still with a condensor, and then you burn off the gas that doesn’t condense to fuel the process. The ashy stuff that doesn’t vaporize will have most of the dangerous crap in it like heavy metals. If you add those to a gasification chamber, then they can catalyse some unwanted reactions and/or get into the air. Most plastics break down vaporize at a fairly low temperature like 400c. there was one type that was significantly higher like abs which you don’t want to burn, or maybe it was polystyrene that creeps into the 700c range before it decomposes.
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^^^^^ What Sean said makes a ton of sense. I thought 400-500c might leave a good amount carbon but if is doesn’t… you shouldn’t have much crud leftover and you might as well put it the residuals somewhere safe and avoid burning them directly. It kind of depends what you are trying to get rid of.
I don’t know that condensing the liquids is all that important but if the trash is wet, condensing out the water will help keep the gasification temps up. Liquids other than water are likely to be combustible. I doubt you could generate enough of the right gases to get knock but it’s a theoretical risk.
Plastic doesn’t have much oxygen in it, generally it’s just carbon and hydrogen with a small amount of nitrogen, so it should gasify nicely without creating any meaningful water shift or heat reducing reactions. Oil won’t have any water assuming you’ve let it separate.
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You have to be -really- careful with plastics because -some- have chlorine in them. Chlorine reacts quite easily with oxygen to create dioxins. Dioxins are a group of chemically-related compounds that are persistent environmental pollutants (POPs). … Dioxins are highly toxic and can cause reproductive and developmental problems, damage the immune system, interfere with hormones and also cause cancer. Which is why the rule is to never burn plastics in an open fire, and thus the crackdown at least in some states on burner barrels. However the retort doesn’t have the excess oxygen, and you can eliminate most of the chlorine by sorting.
Second, just because it is labled as a number2 type of plastic doesn’t mean it is ALL number2 plastic. Manufacturers actually have various blends of plastics for different properties.
To be honest, it is really touching on some of the issues that affect post-consumer plastic recycling. Some plastics you can remelt and re-use though. It just depends on the plastic.
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Just want to ditto Sean about not burning chlorine containing materials.
I recommend using your nose. Get a wiff of chlorine bleach, and remember it. Then get a small piece of white office paper and burn it. Now think, how did that paper get so white to begin with? Now get a piece of brown butcher’s paper and burn it. I think you will smell the difference. Before you burn any plastics burn a small sample. If it smells like bleach don’t burn it.
Rindert
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