A review on thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of plastic solid waste (PSW)

Abstract

Plastic plays an important role in our daily lives due to its versatility, light weight and low production cost. Plastics became essential in many sectors such as construction, medical, engineering applications, automotive, aerospace, etc. In addition, economic growth and development also increased our demand and dependency on plastics which leads to its accumulation in landfills imposing risk on human health, animals and cause environmental pollution problems such as ground water contamination, sanitary related issues, etc. Hence, a sustainable and an efficient plastic waste treatment is essential to avoid such issues. Pyrolysis is a thermo-chemical plastic waste treatment technique which can solve such pollution problems, as well as, recover valuable energy and products such as oil and gas. Pyrolysis of plastic solid waste (PSW) has gained importance due to having better advantages towards environmental pollution and reduction of carbon footprint of plastic products by minimizing the emissions of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide compared to combustion and gasification. This paper presents the existing techniques of pyrolysis, the parameters which affect the products yield and selectivity and identify major research gaps in this technology. The influence of different catalysts on the process as well as review and comparative assessment of pyrolysis with other thermal and catalytic plastic treatment methods, is also presented.

Coke formation and deactivation during catalytic reforming of biomass and waste pyrolysis products: A review

“…The flexibility of pyrolysis processes also allows the co-treatment of plastic blends together with other materials, such as biomass [47]. The requirements of scaling-up and continuous operation have led to the proposal of a variety of technologies and reactors under development [48]. In this regard, the fluidized bed reactor (with sand as a fluidizing agent) is been widely employed, since its satisfactory heat and mass transfer leads to a better thermal control [48].…”

Co-production of hydrogen and carbon nanotubes from real-world waste plastics: Influence of catalyst composition and operational parameters

“…Over 60% of post-consumer plastics ends up in waste landfills or is incinerated, representing a waste of resource [1]. Thermal recycling via pyrolysis and gasification of waste plastics, into fuels and chemical products has been identified as a promising technology for tackling waste issues related to plastics [2,3]. In recent years, an attractive method of producing high value nanomaterials such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) from waste plastics has been reported [4,5].…”

Variation in Gas Chromatography (GC) analysis in setting up laboratory protocols for waste to energy novel fixed bed reactor setups

“…These chemicals are high their calorific value (CV) and represent a good venture for recovery as a feedstock recycling process [5,6]. The major chemical compounds typically found in ELTs are polyisoprene (PI), polybutadiene (PBD) and a significant proportion of styrene-butadiene-rubber (SBR) [3,7].…”