High Energy Containing Fractions from Plastic Wastes by Their Chemical Recycling

Different conventional fractions of oil industry were produced by the cracking of real plastic wastes under mild conditions in a horizontal tube reactor. The influence of the raw material (HDPE, PP, HDPE/PS and HDPE/PP/PS/PA/PVC) on the characteristic of the cracked products was studied. It was found that waste polymers could be converted into valuable lighter fractions (gas, naphtha, middle distillates or light oil) with yields of 30–60% depending on the applied cracking parameters. The gas and liquid products had significant content of unsaturated hydrocarbons, mainly α-olefins, but their types (vinyl or vinilydene) were considerably affected by the composition of raw materials. Lighter naphtha-like fractions had high octane numbers (83  68) in case of middle distillates. Products from suitable raw materials had very low sulphur, nitrogen and hetroatom content (<10 ppm) or products are sulphur and nitrogen free. Due to the high energy content of products there is a good chance of energetic utilization, but the possibility of their application is mainly depending on the composition of feed plastics.

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