Extraction of transportation grade fuels from waste LDPE packaging polymers using catalytic pyrolysis

Abstract

The recovery of liquid fuel from waste polymers through pyrolysis is an intelligent approach to minimize environmental impact and reduce fossil fuel demand in the future. Pyrolysis is an effective method to extract pyrolysis oil (PO) from waste polymers. The addition of catalysts during the pyrolysis process further improves the molecule cracking rate, oil yield and reduce the processing duration. This study investigates, the effect of magnesium bentonite catalysts on pyrolysis of low-density polyethylene (LDPE) with different percentages such as 1, 2, 3, and 4 by weight and analyse the quality and yield percentage of extracted liquid. During the experimentation, the pyrolysis is performed under different catalyst levels at a constant temperature of 340˚C. From the result, it is noted that the pyrolysis process with 1% and 2% of catalysts increased PO extraction rate with better fuel properties. The pyrolysis process with 1% of catalysts resulted with 77.97% of PO, 14.23% of residue and 7.79% of gas with average fuel properties which has higher PO extraction rate compared to other catalyst concentrations. The pyrolysis process with 2% of catalysis has resulted 69.6 % of PO, 24.01% of residue and 6.12% of gas with better fuel properties than other catalysts percentages and possess similar properties of petroleum diesel. It has high cetane number, heating value and low viscosity of 51.6, 43.421 MJ kg−1 and 2.73 m2 s−1 respectively compared to other catalysts percentage.