Can diesel be made from plastic bottles?

Plastic bottles are widely used in different fields due to their properties, such as food, beverages, medicines, cosmetics and other fields. Plastic bottles are also made of various materials, such as PET, PE, PVC, PP, PS, etc. In addition to plastic bottles made of PVC and PET, discarded waste plastic bottles made of other materials can be recycled and processed into fuel oil by pyrolysis plant, and even refined into diesel fuel.

Plastic bottles to diesel making plant

PVC (polyvinyl chloride) plastic bottles are made of vinyl chloride monomers and contain chlorine. During the pyrolysis process, PVC releases harmful chlorinated compounds such as hydrogen chloride (HCl) and chlorobenzene. These compounds are toxic. The pyrolysis efficiency of PET plastic bottles is not as good as other plastics, and the oil yield is low. The harmful substances produced by decomposition at high temperatures, such as phenol and acetic acid, are corrosive to plastic pyrolysis plants, which will shorten the life of the equipment and increase the cost of maintenance and replacement of equipment.

Therefore, if you want to use plastic bottles to make diesel, you need to classify and sort the waste plastics before waste plastics pyrolysis process. Choose waste plastic bottles used for shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, fruit jam, sauce, seasoning, cosmetics, and skin care products, rather than conventional PVC/PET waste plastic bottles for beverage and juice packaging.

Then how do we make diesel from selected plastic bottles? The plastic to diesel making process includes two steps, pyrolysis process and distillation process, the pyrolysis process is used to recycle the solid waste to heavy fuel oil, the distillation process is used to refine the heavy fuel oil to diesel.

Plastic to diesel pyrolysis distillation process

1. The plastic bottle pyrolysis process

The pyrolysis process is mainly high-temperature pyrolysis and low-temperature cooling. Solid waste plastic bottles are mainly long molecular chains. In the process of high temperature heating, long molecular chains in the pyrolysis reactor of waste plastic pyrolysis plant are broken into short molecular chains which is the oil gas, then oil gas will be cooled down to the liquid oil at the condensers system, this oil is the pyrolysis oil which is a kind of heavy oil. The oil yield of different waste plastic bottles is different. If mixed garbage plastic bottles are processed, the oil yield is estimated to be between 30% and 50%.

2. The plastic pyrolysis oil to diesel making process

The distillation process is mainly to refine the liquid plastic pyrolysis oil produced by waste plastic pyrolysis plant. After distillation and refining, plastic pyrolysis oil is further broken into short molecular chains, which are then turned into diesel by the catalyst. The Distillation process needs to use the catalyst, and there are two types of pyrolysis oil refinery plants for sale. One uses the solid catalyst and the other one uses the solid catalyst. These two designs could meet different client’s different requirements.

Plastic pyrolysis oil refinery plants of different catalysts technology

3. The final product

The diesel extracted from the waste plastic bottles is not standard diesel, which cannot be used in cars, but can be used in large trucks, tractors, diesel generators, heavy machines, agricultural machinery and more.

Applications of diesel extracted from plastic

On top of that is the fundamental introduction of making diesel from waste plastic bottles. If you want to engage in related plastic to oil/diesel making business, welcome to contact Henan Doing Company to get detailed solutions.