Plastic waste to fuel via pyrolysis: A key way to solving the severe plastic waste problem in Ghana

Abstract

The accumulation of plastic waste on the globe, with its harmful environmental impact is on the rise. Development of an efficient conversional method for heterogeneous plastic waste streams would not only provide a solution to this problem, but also, provide a boost to local economies. This study, seeks to exploit the possibility of employing pyrolysis as a means of converting a mixture of plastic waste materials into a resource; to recover crude fuel oil from the waste and also reduce the environmental impacts. Pyrolysis was conducted in a fixed bed reactor at 350 °C with nitrogen gas flow of 200 ml/min for 2 h, 40 min cracking time. The resulted crude product was analyzed by various analytical methods such as FT-IR, GC-MS, and Kinematic Viscosity. The results from the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) analysis shows that the fuel oil produced is made up of 21 functional groups which is a blend of aliphatic and aromatic groups of compounds; aliphatic compounds are the most abundant. Also according to the GC-MS results obtained, the fuel oil contains substances that are within the diesel fuel range (C12-C24), with behenic alcohol as the highest peaked compound. The crude fuel oil has a kinematic viscosity of 1.036 mm2 s−1, which decreases with increasing temperature. The results show that the crude fuel oil obtained has the possibility to be used as an alternative fuel for wide range of purposes in the future. In this regard, pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste studied here presents an efficient, clean and effective means of removing plastic debris from the environment. Plastic waste isn’t the whole problem, how we handle it also count. Thus the responsibility is on us to be smart on how we handle plastic; as pollution, or as an economical resource.