Abstract
The aim of this paper is for the production of oils processed in refineries to come from the pyrolysis of real waste from the high plastic content rejected by the recycling industry of the Basque Country (Spain). Concretely, the rejected waste streams were collected from (1) a light packaging waste sorting plant, (2) the paper recycling industry, and (3) a waste treatment plant of electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE). The influence of pre-treatments (mechanical separation operations) and temperature on the yield and quality of the liquid fraction were evaluated. In order to study the pre-treatment effect, the samples were pyrolyzed at 460 °C for 1 h. As pre-treatments concentrate on the suitable fraction for pyrolysis and reduce the undesirable materials (metals, PVC, PET, inorganics, cellulosic materials), they improve the yield to liquid products and considerably reduce the halogen content. The sample with the highest polyolefin content achieved the highest liquid yield (70.6 wt.% at 460 °C) and the lowest chlorine content (160 ppm) among the investigated samples and, therefore, was the most suitable liquid to use as refinery feedstock. The effect of temperature on the pyrolysis of this sample was studied in the range of 430–490 °C. As the temperature increased the liquid yield increased and solid yield decreased, indicating that the conversion was maximized. At 490 °C, the pyrolysis oil with the highest calorific value (44.3 MJ kg−1) and paraffinic content (65% area), the lowest chlorine content (128 ppm) and more than 50 wt.% of diesel was obtained.
Highlights
Nowadays, the huge growth in plastic production has resulted in a massive generation of this kind of waste
While TMR refers to the amount of material obtained after pre-treatment, the term RMSP refers to the concentration of plastics in the recovered fraction that is appropriate for the pyrolysis process in order to obtain high liquid yields
Industrial rejected streams present different natures depending on their origin and this decisively influences the production of pyrolysis oils
Summary
The huge growth in plastic production has resulted in a massive generation of this kind of waste. In order to reduce adverse effects presented by plastic waste, a recent European Directive 2018/851 was renewed to promote the recovery of plastic waste for recycling, avoiding the deposition in landfills [3]. The amount of waste that ends up in landfills is still very high. According to a recently published report, in Spain, landfill is the most recurrent measure to get rid of post-consume plastic waste (46%) [4]. Increasing the recycling rate and reducing the landfill disposal only through conventional mechanical recycling routes is sometimes complicated and not an economically viable alternative, since there are a lot of plastic waste streams that are composed by a wide and intermingled variety of materials, especially those that came from industrial recovery processes [5,6]. New recycling alternatives are required, and pyrolysis, recently catalogued as TRL 9 (technology readiness level), seems to be a promising option [7]
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