Alternative Diesel Grade Fuel Transformed from Polypropylene (PP) Municipal Waste Plastic Using Thermal Cracking with Fractional Column Distillation

Day by day worldwide use of plastics is increasing because of their light weight and durable characteristics. Waste plastics are major environmental problems all over the world. Waste plastics are not bio-degradable, it remains in the landfill for a long period of time causing vegetation and aquatic ecosystem dilemmas. Abandoned waste plastic thrown into the ocean causes friction of ocean waves and then broken down by sunlight into small pieces and takes the shape of plastic like soup. Aquatic organism mistakes the plastic soup as their food and can’t digest, either they die or through food chain it affects human health. To avoid severe environmental degradation problems of waste plastics some countries and big cities banned or restricted the use of plastic products. The worldwide generation of waste plastics is approximately 280 million tons/year. All most all of these waste plastics are dumped either in land or ocean. City municipalities spend huge amount of money each year just to dispose of these waste plastics into landfill because most waste plastics are not recycled. When the waste plastics are subjected to incineration, they release harmful toxic gas into the environment causing severe pollution. These waste plastics gradually enhance the hazardous environmental problems. Generally plastics are made from crude oil, however crude oil is a very limited natural resource and non-renewable. Every year millions of barrels of crude oil are to produce the waste plastics and when plastics are discarded after use the energy source is lost. A new developed technology plan minimizes the environment pollution problems simultaneously boost up energy sector by renovating the waste plastics into high energy content fuel. The produced fuel is obtained using a unique thermal degradation of waste plastics and converting them into hydrocarbon fuel like materials. Preliminary tests proved that this fuel burns cleaner and the production cost is very low. Unique production setup demonstrated to produce 93% fuel from waste plastic in the pilot scale. The Fuel produced has been tested and proven to work on majority types of internal combustion engines. This technology utilized can avoid waste plastic pollution problem worldwide by the implementation of newly developed technology. Through the utilization of the technology the use of reliable plastics won’t need to be banned and serve as a very reliable alternate source of energy. The technology will also help reduce a significant amount of import oil from foreign countries and help provide a steady economy.

A New Kind of Renewable Energy: Production of Aromatic Hydrocarbons Naphtha Chemical by Thermal Degradation of Polystyrene (PS) Waste Plastic

Polystyrene (PS) waste plastic to renewable energy or naphtha grade fuel production through fractional distillation process was applied and PS liquefaction temperature range was 250?C - 430?C and fractional column temperature was 110?C - 135?C for naphtha grade fuel separation. The thermal degradation of PS waste plastic to renewable energy or naphtha grade chemical production was without adding any kind of cracking catalyst and without vacuum system. Polystyrene waste plastic is not bio-degradable and its can remain long period of landfill and creating gas emission for that reason its major cause climate change. For experimental purpose raw sample was use 1 kg of PS waste plastic and experiment was performed under Labconco fume hood and experiment was fully closed system, whole experiment was performed into stainless steel reactor. Produced fuel was analysis by gas chromatography and mass spectrometer, FT-IR and DSC. Analysis result indicate for fuel compounds chemical structure, compound band energy and enthalpy, delta H value. Produced fuel sulfur content less then environmental protection agency (EPA) level and fuel could be use for chemical feedstock refinery for further modification. By using this technology can reduce some foreign oil dependency and boost up renewable energy sector all over the world.

Environmentally Harmful Low Density Waste Plastic Conversion into Kerosene Grade Fuel

Plastics wastes from a municipal solid waste (MSW) plant have a high-energy content and are suitable for fuel generation. Thermal cracking is one of the possible ways to obtain petrochemical feedstock from polymer wastes. Municipal waste plastic of LDPE conversion to kerosene grade fuel experiments were carried out under atmospheric conditions at temperatures between 150℃ and 420℃. Low density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic waste (Code #2) was thermally depolymerized in batch process into stainless steel reactor without adding catalyst. The maximum kerosene grade fuel yield is 30%, other grade fuel 60%, light gas 6% and left over residue 4%. The composition, sulphur and Btu value of liquid products were determined by ASTM method. Produced fuel was analyzed by Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometer and FT-IR. Very high conversions from LDPE waste plastic to kerosene grade fuel (up to 35%) were obtained while using this technique. Detailed product analyses and characterization lead to a reasonable explanation of reaction pathways and mechanisms.