Conversion of waste plastic
Journal of Materials Science and Engineering B 1 (2011) 86-89
Formerly part of Journal of Materials Science and Engineering, ISSN 1934-8959
Conversion of Plastic Wastes into Fuels
Antony Raja and Advaith Murali
Department of Chemical Engineering, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Sriperumbudur 602105, India
Received: October 23, 2010 / Accepted: November 10, 2010 / Published: June 10, 2011.
Abstract: Plastics have woven their way into our daily lives and now pose a tremendous threat to the environment. Over a 100 million tones of plastics are produced annually worldwide, and the used products have become a common feature at overflowing bins and landfills. Though work has been done to make futuristic biodegradable plastics, there have not been many conclusive steps towards cleaning up the existing problem. Here, the process of converting waste plastic into value added fuels is explained as a viable solution for recycling of plastics. Thus two universal problems such as problems of waste plastic and problems of fuel shortage are being tackled simultaneously. The waste plastics are subjected to depolymerisation, pyrolysis, catalytic cracking and fractional distillation to obtain different value added fuels such as petrol, kerosene, and diesel, lube oil, furnace oil traction and coke. The catalyst used here is a mixture of zeolite, clay, alumina and silicates in different proportions. Converting waste plastics into fuel hold great promise for both the environmental and economic scenarios. Thus, the process of converting plastics to fuel has now turned the problems into an opportunity to make wealth from waste.
Key words: Waste plastics, pyrolysis, catalytic cracking, depolymerisation, fractional distillation.
1. Introduction
2. Plastics in Environment
Plastics play an important role in day-today life, as in certain application they have an edge over conventional materials. Indeed, their light weight, durability, energy efficiency,
Formerly part of Journal of Materials Science and Engineering, ISSN 1934-8959
Conversion of Plastic Wastes into Fuels
Antony Raja and Advaith Murali
Department of Chemical Engineering, Sri Venkateswara College of Engineering, Sriperumbudur 602105, India
Received: October 23, 2010 / Accepted: November 10, 2010 / Published: June 10, 2011.
Abstract: Plastics have woven their way into our daily lives and now pose a tremendous threat to the environment. Over a 100 million tones of plastics are produced annually worldwide, and the used products have become a common feature at overflowing bins and landfills. Though work has been done to make futuristic biodegradable plastics, there have not been many conclusive steps towards cleaning up the existing problem. Here, the process of converting waste plastic into value added fuels is explained as a viable solution for recycling of plastics. Thus two universal problems such as problems of waste plastic and problems of fuel shortage are being tackled simultaneously. The waste plastics are subjected to depolymerisation, pyrolysis, catalytic cracking and fractional distillation to obtain different value added fuels such as petrol, kerosene, and diesel, lube oil, furnace oil traction and coke. The catalyst used here is a mixture of zeolite, clay, alumina and silicates in different proportions. Converting waste plastics into fuel hold great promise for both the environmental and economic scenarios. Thus, the process of converting plastics to fuel has now turned the problems into an opportunity to make wealth from waste.
Key words: Waste plastics, pyrolysis, catalytic cracking, depolymerisation, fractional distillation.
1. Introduction
2. Plastics in Environment
Plastics play an important role in day-today life, as in certain application they have an edge over conventional materials. Indeed, their light weight, durability, energy efficiency,
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