# Working on Pyrolysis prototype - not for wood only



## NittyGrittyRabbitry (Dec 24, 2021)

We have been working on building a pyrolysis unit that will take many kinds of materials - tires, plastic, wood waste, even household garbage - and convert to syngas plus diesel. This summer we will be teaming up with a smart young man from Georgia to build a 55 gallon drum size unit. Very excited to see what comes out of this collaboration. Besides technical skills, he is an entertaining and informative teacher. Gen X and Gen Z teaming up!


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## furnacefighter15 (8 mo ago)

Interesting


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## NittyGrittyRabbitry (Dec 24, 2021)

I will post when we make progress. It's become our mission.


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## doc- (Jun 26, 2015)

I refuse to do YouTube (Google is Evil)...Please summarize for us.

You may be trying to re-invent the wheel....Any organic material can be turned into methane & hydrogen by burning it under hypoxic conditions, essentially turning it into natural gas (close enough), which can then be burned and used for any application where NG/LP etc is used.

If you;re somehow using a micowave, my first question is what powers the microwave? (it sounds like a Perpetual Motion Folly) and secondly, a microwave oven heats ONLY water molecules, so how does it get the plastic warm?


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## NittyGrittyRabbitry (Dec 24, 2021)

I am, unfortunately, not the techie person in this project. And while I understand the main outline of what we are doing, I am not sure what the microwave is bringing to the table more than what we were doing. I will find out.

When you say "burn under hypoxic conditions," are you referring to pyrolysis? It is an envronment with as little oxygen as possible, but it is not burning per se. It is highly likely you know more about this than I do, I am simply seeking to determine if we are talking about the same process. We will be making syngas (pretty sure that is what you called "natural gas") but also a diesel type fuel when the load is tires or plastics. I would be delighted to examine other plans or prototypes. No matter how much I research, I know I am not finding everything. We have not found anything that was not either a large plant or that only used wood or other very specific biomass and was quite expensive.


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## doc- (Jun 26, 2015)

HeatMasterSS Plenty of furnaces that use gasification to provide heat are available commercially. They are intended to burn wood, but anything organic can be used,

Your problem is not the pyrolysis part. Tt's collecting the syn-gas for stoarge and use at a later time that's the problem. Maybe the way to solve that is to produce the gas, burn it immediatley to power a generator, then store the electricity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator used regularly in WWII when gasokline wasn't available to power autos. You could just use it in a stationary engine.

K.I.S.S.


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