Catalytic Degradation of Waste Plastic into Fuel Oil
Abstract This process involves catalytic degradation of waste plastic into fuel range hydrocarbon i.e. petrol, diesel and kerosene etc. A catalytic cracking process in which waste plastic were melted and cracked in the absence of oxygen and at very high temperature, the resulting gases were cooled by condensation and resulting crude oil was recovered. From this crude oil various products petrol, diesel and kerosene etc. can be obtained by distillation. This process mainly consists of four units (1) reacting vessel or reaction chamber (2) condensation unit (3) receiving unit (4) distillation unit. More specifically the degradation of waste plastic except polyvinyl chloride (PVC) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) over two commercial grade cracking catalysts, containing 20% and 40% ultra stable Y zeolite, respectively, was studied in a semi-batch reactor. Also the effect of polymer catalyst ratio was studied on the formation of liquid hydrocarbons. The best results were obtained when polymer catalyst ratio was 4:1 and after this ratio the liquid yield decreases. Furthermore alternate method for disposal of waste plastic is also studied. And the results of this process are found to be better than other alternate methods which are used for the disposal of waste plastic.
The only sustainable solution is degradation of polymer into various smaller molecular weight fragments. Catalytic degradation of plastic waste offers considerable benefits as compared to thermal degradation and other methods used. Catalytic degradation occurs at considerably low temperature and forms hydrocarbons in the range of motor range fuel. In such degradation process, the most valuable fuel is obviously liquid fuel. Although gaseous products are useful too, as their burning can contribute to the energy demand of an endothermic polymer cracking process, excess gas production is not desirable.
For such catalytic process mainly zeolite-based catalysts [6, 9-16] have been used by various authors and other alumina silicate such as silica alumina [6-9], zsm-5 and MCM-type mesoporous materials [17] were used. In order to further improve the yield to liquid fuel in the plastic catalytic cracking, we recently introduced two commercial grade cracking catalysts, containing 20% and 40% ultra stable Y-zeolite, respectively. This study has shown the suitability of commercial cracking catalyst for such polymer degradation process. Furthermore 4:1 polymer catalyst ratio produces more hydrocarbons in liquid form. The test of commercial cracking catalysts is important as one of the options of commercializing this polymer degradation method is to co-feed polymer waste to existing refinery crackers [11, 14-16].
This paper reports on the results of our study of polymer degradation...
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