Recovery of Hydrocarbon Fuel from Mixture of Municipal Waste Plastics Using Catalyst

Abstract

ABSTRACT Globally, energy crisis focusses on the researchers to explore innovative and alternative sources of energy. This tribulation has acute for the developing countries. Generation of any kind of waste is a vital problem for the environment. Some wastes have the characteristics of producing energy by different thermochemical conversions. Inaugurate of using plastics has curtailed many problems in our daily life. Waste plastics are assessed as harmful things when it is thrown into the landfill because of their non-degradable property. Plastic waste is becoming a tremendous threat to the environment as a little fraction of it is being recycled through plastic re-production. Rest of them are thrown into the landfill or incinerated. To get rid of the environmental problem and to recover fuel, municipal waste plastics were converted into a liquid hydrocarbon by using catalyst at a temperature range of 250–400°C. Aluminium oxide (Al2O3) and zinc oxide (ZnO) were used as a catalyst in this study. The maximum conversion was found 78 ± 2% when the catalyst percentage was 5%. Fuel quality was tested using ASTM standard method and compared with other commercial-grade gasoline and diesel oil. The density and kinematic viscosity of the oil were found as 779 kg/m3 and 2.693 cSt. Research Octane number (RON) of produced oil was 84. Physical properties such that flash points, pour point and cetane index of produced oil were also measured and found as 20°C, less than 3 and 65.5, respectively. The properties of produced oil were much closer to that of diesel oil. It could be concluded that plastic waste may be a potential source of alternative fuels.