Eco Friendly Plastic Fuel

Friday, August 13, 2010




Eco Friendly Plastic Fuel
(Conversion of Waste Plastic into Liquid Hydrocarbons/Energy)
A major breakthrough in the arena of
Non-conventional sources of energy!
Waste plastic problem is an ever-increasing menace for global environment. Because of flexibility, durability and economy, a phenomenal rise is observed in the plastic consumer base. More than 150 million tons
of waste plastic is generated worldwide
each year. Though plastics have opened the way for a plethora of new inventions and devices it has also ended up clogging the
drains and becoming a health hazard. Plastics being non biodegradable get accumulated in the environment. If this problem is not addressed properly, it will lead to mountains of waste plastic.
Throughout the world, research on waste plastic management is being carried out at war-footing. In developed countries, few waste plastic disposal/conversion methods have been implemented but are not efficient and economically feasible. According to nationwide survey conducted in the year 2003 more than 10,000 MT of plastic waste is generated every day in India. Unfortunately there is no definite policy to cater waste plastic generated. Every year losses due choking of drainage lines due to waste Plastics are in crores of rupees. Every year millions of rupees losses are suffered by agro-economy because of death of animals due to eating plastics.
Our country faces the critical problem of fuel and energy deficiency. The fast depletion of petroleum reserves in the world and frequent rise in prices of crude oil affect our economy adversely. India is not self sufficient in case of petroleum and crude oil. The national production capacity is capable of fulfilling not even 30% of the total fuel demand. The remaining whopping 70% is fulfilled by importing crude. Most of our precious foreign exchange is spent on importing crude.
Prof. Mrs. Alka Umesh Zadgaonkar, Head of Department of Applied Chemistry at the Nagpur based G.H. Raisoni College of Engineering, invented an Environment friendly catalytic-additive process for disposal of waste plastic.
The invented process involves degradation of waste plastic using `catalytic-additive’ and is different from the generally existing pyrolytic processes. The products obtained in the process are Liquid hydrocarbons, Gas and residual Coke.

Recycling of plastic by conventional methods
Recycling is not the complete solution for disposal of the waste plastics. After third/fourth recycling the plastic is totally unfit for reuse and hence ultimately it ends up in land filling. Some types of the plastics are not suitable for recycling. However, recycling of plastics is only suitable for processing segregated plastic materials and is not suitable for assorted municipal waste plastics.
The problems associated with the recycling process are as follows:
• Many types of plastics are used hence it is difficult to segregate them for specific purpose
• Plastics contain a wide range of fillers & additives
• Many times plastic is associated with metal, Glass etc
• Sorting of plastic is technically difficult as well as expensive
• Recycling of plastic degrades the quality of the end product
• Laminated plastics are non recyclable.

Salient features of EPF (Ecofriendly Plastics Fuel) technology
• Generally the plastic waste contains about 2-4 wt% PVC, 5-8 wt% PET, 15-20 wt% PP, 20-25 wt% LDPE, 15-20 wt%, HDPE 10-15 wt%, 7-10 wt% of ABS, Nylon, etc. The output product does not change appreciably either qualitatively or quantitatively irrespective of any input changes or proportions
• Batch Process has been successfully. converted into Continuous Process
• Effects of feed variation collected from municipal waste have been studied and offers a complete solution for Waste Plastic disposal
• Improvement in product quality from variety of feed generated from municipal plastic waste has been achieved.

The process:
The invented process involves degradation waste plastic using `catalytic-additive’ and is different from the generally existing pyrolytic processes. The laboratory scale set-up was developed in batch mode in which individual as well as mixed plastics were successfully converted in to fuels. Now the commercial 5MT/Day plant operates on continuous mode. The products obtained in the process are Liquid hydrocarbons (65-75%), LPG range Gas (15-20%) and residual Coke (8-12%).

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