4-Stroke
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Posts: 43
Registered: 20-4-2024
Location: Canada
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Mood: Often Wrong, Never Unsure
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DIY Ethylene Plant
Hello everyone. I was wondering if it is possible for an amateur to construct an ethylene "furnace" similar to this:
I would use alumina as the catalyst instead of kaolin as it is not significantly more expensive, has a longer lifespan, has a uniform size (thus is
easier to work with), and I think it is more effective (less of it is needed compared to kaolin to generate ethylene at the same rate).
Heating the catalyst tube horizontally should be much easier than vertically.
Also, instead of the condenser, I think that it should be much easier to bubble the resulting ethylene/hydrogen/ethanol/steam/ether mixture into a
large container with water (that is either just kept as is for short runs, cooled externally, or just continuously feed into the container to keep it
cool).
Something like this:
The "reactor" should consist of:
1. An airtight container where ethanol is boiled (e.g. a 5 gallon steel bucket with an airtight lid. Normal silicone could be used to ensure
airtightness as ethanol boils at a low temperature).
2. A steel pipe that leads the ethanol vapors to the catalyst tube (e.g. a 1" threaded pipe which is insulated to prevent ethanol reflux).
3. A steel tube filled with alumina catalyst (e.g. a 1.25" threaded tube, about a meter long, heated to 450°C).
4. A propane burner underneath the catalyst tube.
5. A tube that leads the products to the bottom of an airtight container (e.g. 30 or 55 gallon drum) filled with water to cool the gasses.
6. The gasses, when cooled, result in water, ether, and unreacted ethanol mixing with the water, while the ethylene and hydrogen bubble out.
7. The output tube leads the produced ethylene out of the container.
8. The water-filled container either:
-Has cold water inputted at the bottom and removed closer to the top.
-Is submerged into a larger container that has cold water circulation (e.g. a 30 gallon drum inside a 55 gallon drum).
-Is left uncooled (for shorter runs).
This would significantly simplify the system as most of it is dedicated to either vaporizing ethanol and mixing it with steam or condensing the gasses
and separating ethylene from them (only the very middle is where the reaction actually takes place), but considering that ethylene is insoluble in
water, wouldn't it just be easier to pass it through water instead of condensing the water out of it? What kind of output (m3 of ethylene
per hour) could be expected?
Thanks.
Ukrainium
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Rainwater
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Registered: 22-12-2021
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https://youtu.be/zRrgvYJ8gAY?si=yuaZd8tqIb-zPOjy
"You can't do that" - challenge accepted
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