ABSTRACT

This paper aims to conduct a feasibility study of producing fuel from plastic waste. It
is a suggested approach to deal with the huge production of synthetic plastic around the
world, so as to avoid its accumulation in landfills and the depletion of resources. Several
types of research have addressed the conversion of plastic waste into energy, and in this study
the authors focused on using pyrolysis to convert plastic to liquid oil. Accordingly, the
volume of the waste was reduced significantly, and the produced liquid oil had a high
calorific value in comparison to fossil fuel.
The authors managed to develop a profitable business model for a facility producing
fuel from plastic waste in Egypt. This project could be a very lucrative business opportunity
for investors or venture capitalists interested in investing in green economy. A Business
Model Canvas was used as a tool to identify how the different components of the business
relate to each other.
calculate the economic feasibility of converting plastic waste to fuel, the authors had
to interview professional experts. In-depth interview was the selected data collection method.
It was used to collect the needed detailed information.
 CONTENT

CHAPTER NO. TITLE PAGE NO.

01 INTRODUCTION 01
02 LITERATURE REVIEW
03 WHAT ARE PLASTIC ?
04 CONVERTING WASTE PLASTIC
INTO LIQUID FUEL
05 TRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM

06 OPERATIONS

07 OPERATING FEATURES OF
THERMOFUEL

08 OUTPUTS
09 CONCLUSION
10 FUTURE SCOPE
11 REFERENCE
 LIST OF FIGURE & IMAGE

FIGURE NO. FIGURE NAME PAGE NO.

FIGURE 1 STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM

FIGURE 2 PLASTIC TO BE CONVERTED

INTO FLUID

FIGURE 3 CONVERTING PROCESS

 INTRODUCTION

Waste to energy is the process of generating energy in the form of electricity, heat or
fuel. It is a form of energy recovery. Most waste to energy processes produce energy directly
through combustion or produce a combustible fuel commodity such as methane, methanol,
ethanol or synthetic fuel.
Plastics are polymeric materials, a material built up from long repeating chains of
molecules. Polymers such as rubber occur naturally, but it wasn't until the development of
synthetic polymers around 1910 that the polymers tailored to the needs of the engineer first
started to appear. One of the first commercial plastics developed was Bakelite and was used
for the casing of early radios. Because the early plastics were not completely chemically
stable, they gained a reputation for being cheap and unreliable. However, advances in plastic
technology since then, mean that plastics are a very important and reliable class of materials
for product design.
Plastic is a marvel of polymer chemistry, plastics have become an indispensable part
of our daily life. But repeated reprocessing of plastic waste, and its disposal cause
environmental problems, pose health hazards, in addition to being a public nuisance. The
biggest current threat to the conventional plastics industry is likely to be environmental
concerns, including the release of toxic pollutants, greenhouse gas and non-biodegrable
landfill impact as a result of the production and disposal of petroleum and petroleum based
plastics.
Various methodologies have been tried and tested to process waste plastics for many
years, with recycling becoming the most common method reflecting today’s environmental
requirements. Liquefaction of plastic is a superior method of reusing this resource. The
distillate product is an excellent fuel and makes ThermoFuel one of the best, economically
feasible and environmentally sensitive recycling systems in the world today.
 LITERATURE REVIEW

➢ Chanashetty and Patil [1] have investigated fuel from waste plastic; they
usedcondenser and reactor for pyrolysis process. They found this method is
suitablefor large plastic seas problems and helping fuel storage by means of products
as diesel, kerosene, and lubricant oil. In this investigation, they used the waste plastics
rigid film, sheet plastic, and expanded foam materials.

➢ Karad and Haval ammanavar [2] investigated waste plastic to fuel, petrol, diesel, and
kerosene by pyrolysis method on the temperature range 350–500 °C and waste plastic
bags, food wrap, vegetable oil bottles, automotive parts garments bags, some carpets
refrigerated containers, and they concluded that it saves 1000000 species of oceanic
life and green future

➢ Arun kumar and Nataraj [3] explored change of waste plastic into fuel oil within the
sight of bentonite as an impetus and utilized materials condenser, reactor strategy is
pyrolysis. It gives us outputs that are petrol, diesel, and fuel oil and inputs are PET
bottles, shopping bags, plastic packages. They concluded that it provides perfect and
green future and fuel efficiency, control of nitrogen, halogen, sulfur which is
hazardous for human beings.

➢ Verma et al. [5] examined engine fuel creation from waste plastic pyrolysis and
execution advancement in a CI Motor with diesel mix. Inputs are every one of the
sorts of waste plastic and yield plastic pyrolysis oil by utilizing pyrolysis technique.
 WHAT ARE PLASTICS

The term "plastic" covers a wide range of synthetic polymer materials. What they
have in common is that they are all made by joining together or "polymerizing" a bunch of
molecules (monomers). There are two main families of plastics, thermosetting and
thermoplastics.

Plastic pollution is caused by the accumulation of plastic waste in the environment. It can
be categorized in primary plastics, such as cigarette butts and bottle caps, or secondary plastics,
resulting from the degradation of the primary ones.

In collaboration with researchers from the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chemists
from the University of California discovered an innovative recycling method that dissolves bonds of
polyethylene plastic to create petroleum and other fuel products.

The original meaning of the word plastic was "pliable and easily shaped," referring to
a group of materials called polymers, meaning “of many parts.” There are several natural
polymers, the most notable of which is cellulose that forms the walls of plants. Since the
discovery of the first polymer, scientists have learned to create synthetic polymers from
petroleum and fossil fuels. All polymers, natural or synthetic, consist of long chains of atoms,
with synthetic polymers having chains that are far longer than the ones found in nature.
 CONVERTING WASTE PLASTIC INTO LIQUID FUEL

Many may not realize throwing away plastic is throwing away a ready fuel source.
Plastic is primarily petroleum and burns with high efficiency. Plastics are commonly made
from fossil fuels which is usually an irreversible process, process have been developed which
recycles plastic waste back into oil.

Thermo Fuel technology is used to convert Waste Plastic into Liquid Fuel. Thermo
Fuel is a ten year old commercially proven technology with nine operational plants in Japan.
Thermofuel is a process where scrap and waste plastics are converted into synthetic fuel. The
system uses liquefaction, pyrolysis and the catalytic breakdown of plastics. The system can
handle almost all the plastic that is currently being sent to landfills.

A major advantage of the process is its ability to handle unsorted, unwashed plastic
and its extremely high efficiency. A ThermoFuel plant can produce up to 9,500 liter of high-
grade synthetic fuel from 10 tonnes of waste plastics, with systems ranging from 10 to 20
tonnes per day. This means that heavily contaminated plastics can be processed without
difficulty.

As the plastic waste is heated, it undergoes a chemical transformation called

Catalytic Thermo Liquefaction (CTL). This process converts the plastic waste into a
substance called Hydrocarbon Oil (HC-Oil).
 STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM

The system consists of stock in feed system, pyrolysis gasification chamber,

catalytic converter, condensers, centrifuge, oil recovery line, off-gas cleaning, and adulterant
removal. Waste plastics are loaded via a hot-melt in feed system directly into main pyrolysis
chamber. When the chamber temperature is raised, agitation commences to even the
temperature and homogenize the feed stocks. Pyrolysis then commences to the point of
product gasification.
Non-plastic materials fall to the bottom of the chamber. The gas goes through the
(patented) catalytic converter and is converted into the distillate fractions by the catalytic
cracking process. The distillate then passes into the recovery tank after cooling in the
condensers. From the recovery tank, the product is sent to a centrifuge to remove
contaminants such as water or carbon. The cleaned distillate is then pumped to the reserve
tank, then to the storage tanks

Fig. STRUCTURE OF THE SYSTEM

 OPERATIONS
Pre-treatment
Pre-treatment, depending on the form of delivery of plastics to the plant, may include
shredding and granulating. The system accepts granulated to a flake size of 2.5 cm or less in
order for it to be conveyed and metered uniformly via a melt infeed system into the chamber.
However, Thermofuel can process most sizes and types of plastics with suitable pre-treatment
equipment.

pyrolysis

The heart of the pyrolysis system is the prime chamber, which performs the essential
functions of homogenization, controlled decomposition and out gassing in a single process.
The process requires minimal maintenance apart from carbon residue removal, and produces
consistent quality distillate from mixed and low-grade plastic waste. The key to an efficient
pyrolysis process is to ensure the plastic is heated uniformly and rapidly. If temperature
gradients develop in the molten plastic mass then different degrees of cracking will occur and
products with a wide distribution of chain lengths will be formed.

Fig. Plastic to be converted into Fluid

The essential steps in the pyrolysis of plastics involve:

• Evenly heating the plastic to a narrow temperature range without excessive temperature
variations.
• Purging oxygen from pyrolysis chamber.
• Careful condensation and fractionation of the pyrolysis vapours to produce distillate of
good quality and consistency.

Pyrolysis is used as a form of thermal treatment to reduce waste volumes and produce
liquid or gaseous fuels as a by product. There is also the possibility of using pyrolysis
systems integrated with other processes such as mechanical biological treatment and
anaerobic digestion. The agricultural waste is pyrolised at a temperature of 450 to 550 ºC.

There are 3 pyrolysis products:

1. A combustible gas that is burned to generate the heat required for the endothermic
pyrolysis reaction. No extra heat or fuel source is required.
2. A liquid bio-oil that can be used as a fuel. The bio-oil cannot be used directly in car
engines. It is converted to a syngas from which clean fuels and petrochemicals can be
synthesized, using well-established technologies.
3. A solid char that can either be burned for energy or recycled as a fertilizer.

Collection of liquid fuel

As the plastics are reduced, the gases are collected and cooled, yielding liquid fuel. This
liquid fuel or crude oil is a complex mixture that has to be separated in a fraction chamber to
form gasoline and diesel. The remaining incondensable gases pass through the top of the
fraction chamber and are either burnt off in a flare stack or fed back to the initial stage of the
process where they are used as an additional fuel to heat the incoming plastic materials.
 OPERATING FEATURES OF THERMOFUEL

PLASTICS SUITABLE FOR TREATMENT

ThermoFuel process can be done on waste plastics such as:
1. Plastic packaging scrap from material recovery/sorting facilities
2. Oil and detergent bottles
3. Mixed post-consumer plastics,
4. Caps/Labels/Rejected bottles from bottle recycling operations, 5. Commercial stretch
and shrink wrap.

Fig. converting process

PRE-TREATMENT

Input feedstock plastics do not require washing or sorting. The plastics can be
shredded or granulated prior to being fed through a melt-infeed system into the chamber so
almost any shape or size of waste plastics can be handled. The system is designed to cope
with these foreign materials up to approximately 10% by weight or volume. So no pre-
treatment is needed.
MAINTENANCE

Coking occurs in the chamber when the pyrolysis of the waste plastics is almost
complete. However, ThermoFuel is designed to minimize coking by stabilizing heat
conductivity within the pyrolysis chamber. The pyrolysis chamber requires cleaning every
second process, and takes just 30 minutes. The catalytic reaction tower needs to be stripped
down periodically and the plates polished, generally every 6 months to once a year. The
maintenance service can be quickly performed (approx. 1 hour) with minimal plant down
time.

POLLUTION

ThermoFuel produces extremely low level of emissions, due to the capture of almost
all of the output, both liquids and gases, inside the system. Pyrolysis of plastics tends to occur
on irregular basis, hence the carbon chain lengths of the pyrolytic gases vary between 1-25.
Most of the gas is liquefied in the condensers but some remains as gas. This high calorific gas
contains methane, ethane, propane, butane, etc. This gas is reused to heat the Pyrolysis
chamber. Plastic pollution Plastic pollution is the accumulation of plastic objects and particles
in the Earth's environment that adversely affects humans, wildlife and their habitat. Plastics
that act as pollutants are categorized by size into micro-, meso-, or macro debris.
 OUTPUTS

OUTPUT FUEL
The typical mass balance for one tonne of mixed polyolefin plastic entering the
process is approximately 90% hydrocarbon distillate, 5% char, as well as 5% gaseous
material known as non-condensable gases. The non-condensable gas from the ThermoFuel
plant is passed through a water scrubber and then fed into the natural gas flow for the burner,
which heats the unit so there are no net hydrocarbon emissions.
The hydrocarbon fraction in turn comprises approximately 75% distillate cut and 25%
paraffin material. The paraffin fraction is continuously cracked after the first condenser until
it reaches the desired chain-length range and then added to the primary fuel stream.

COMPARISON

A comparison of the distillate produced from a commingled plastic mix compared

with regular synthetic fuel has been conducted by gas chromatography, and shows good
similarity between fuels. A key indicator of diesel is the Cetane Number which is analogous
to the octane rating for petrol. Cetane is a measure of the ignition delay, that is, the time
between injection into the cylinder and the moment of autoignition. This is most significant in
relation to low-temperature start ability, warm-up, and smooth, balanced combustion.

Distillates with a higher cetane rating show increased power and superior
performance characteristics. Ideal diesel will have a high proportion of hydrocarbon chains
that are 16 carbon atoms. Thermo Fuel-produced diesel has a cetane number in the range of
57, similar to or higher conventional diesel, which averages 51-54. Most engine
manufacturers recommend diesel fuels with a cetane number of at least 50.

APPLICATIONS:

The distillate is designed to operate in a diesel engine where it is injected into the
compressed, high-temperature air in the combustion chamber and ignites spontaneously.
Thermo Fuel is perfectly suited to any standard application.

LUBRICITY:

Thermo Fuel is extremely high in lubricity. In diesel engines some components like
fuel pumps and injectors are lubricated by the fuel, so good lubricity is a key element in
reducing wear on these parts.
COST

The cost of producing one tonne of liquid fuel is around US$200, with the largest single cost
being the purchase price of the waste plastic from the recycling companies which is between
US$70 and US$85, depending on the quality of the plastic. Thermofuel derived diesel fuel
generally costs less than 35 cents per litre depending on feedstock type, labour and certain
costs particular to your operations.
 CONCLUSION

In recent decades, fuel conversion from plastic wastes has received

extensive attentions in order to environmental pollution and energy crisis. This
review summarizes the available technologies for plastic wastes conversion into fuels
comprehensively.
The fuels, obtained from plastic wastes conversion via traditional thermal
treatment, possess high calorific value and superior performance approaching
gasoline and diesel. However, the plastic
 FUTURE SCOPE

Environmental Impact:

Waste Reduction: Converting plastic waste into fuel helps in reducing the amount of
plastic in landfills and oceans, contributing to environmental conservation.

Energy Recovery: By extracting energy from waste plastics, this process can
contribute to a more sustainable energy mix.

Resource Efficiency:

Resource Conservation: Recycling plastic into fuel can be seen as a form of resource
conservation, as it allows for the recovery of energy from materials that would otherwise be
discarded.

Reduced Dependency on Fossil Fuels: If scaled up, the conversion of plastic to fuel
could potentially reduce the demand for traditional fossil fuels.

Public Awareness and Education:

Awareness Programs: Public awareness and education campaigns regarding the

environmental impact of plastic pollution and the potential of plastic-to-fuel technologies
could garner support for these initiatives.
 REFERENCE

• N. Ahmad et al.
Thermal conversion of polystyrene plastic waste to liquid fuel via
ethanolysis
Fuel
(2020)

• S.M. Al-Salem et al.

A review on thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of plastic solid waste
(PSW)
J. Environ. Manag.
(2017)

• S.D. Anuar Sharuddin et al.

A review on pyrolysis of plastic wastes
Energ. Convers. Manag.
(2016)

• B. Bai et al.
Experimental investigation on liquefaction of plastic waste to oil in
supercritical water
Waste Manag.
(2019)