Fast Pyrolysis oil from plastics waste as a Fuel for Gas Turbine Power Plants

Abstract

Plastic production and usage increase every year due to its low cost, practicality, and flexibility. Despite the advantages of plastics as a raw material, it represents a serious environmental problem when it becomes waste. Most of the plastic is produced from petrol. Its chemical composition provides the opportunity to be transformed into a fuel via a pyrolysis process, with or without a catalyst. The pyrolysis process yields solid, liquid and gas fractions. The liquid fraction has properties similar to those of conventional fuels and can be used in internal combustion engines. However, although fast pyrolysis is cheaper, it produces lower quality products (longer carbon chains) not suitable for these types of engines. In the present paper, main properties of oils from fast pyrolysis are analysed and compared to those of Heavy Fuel Oils (HFO) to demonstrate that they represent a feasible alternative to decrease the impact of plastics in the environment and to obtain an alternative fuel to feed a power plant.