Thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of waste polypropylene plastic using spent FCC catalyst

Abstract

Waste polypropylene plastic (WPP) is an enormous volume of plastics in the landfill in Nigeria. It causes serious environmental problems, such as reduced landfill space and pollution. We made WPP plastic undergo pyrolysis using a batch reactor subjected to temperatures variation of 300 °C, 350 °C, 375 °C, 400 °C, and the spent fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst used were 5, 7.5, and 10 wt% catalyst. We heated the reactor at a rate of 15 °C/min. until it reaches the pyrolysis temperature of 400 °C at atmospheric pressure. We investigated the influence of the FCC catalyst, reaction temperatures, and catalyst to plastic ratio. We characterized the pyrolysis liquid oil using density, pour point, API gravity, flash point, viscosity, calorific value, carbon residue, ATSM distillation, and GC–MS. The thermal pyrolysis produced maximum liquid oil (83.3 wt%) with gases (13.2 wt%), and char (3.0 wt%), while the catalytic pyrolysis using 0.1 catalyst to plastic ratio decreased the liquid oil yield (77.6 wt%), and char (2.7 wt%), with an increase in gases (19.7 wt%). The GC–MS results of the catalytic pyrolysis of liquid oil showed that the liquid fractions comprised a wide range of hydrocarbon, mainly distributed within C4 to > C17. The paraffin, olefins, naphthalene, and aromatics yield were 30.83%, 44.6%. 19.44%, and 5.13%, respectively. The liquid oil’s fuel properties were like that of gasoline and diesel. • The liquid oil yield from thermal (83.3 wt%) and that of catalytic (77.6 wt%) pyrolysis. • The liquid fractions comprises a wide range of hydrocarbons from C 4 -C 17 . • The liquid oils fuel properties were comparable to that of gasoline and diesel.