Design of Pyrolysis Reactor for Waste Plastic Recycling

There is an increase in the production and consumption of plastics in day to day life. All plastics are disposed as waste after their usage. The need to intervene through proper disposal and management of waste plastics is very crucial. These call the use of thermal pyrolysis, which is a way of making these wastes to become very useful to us by recycling them to produce fuel oil. In this study, the pyrolysis reactor was design and manufactured for recycling of waste plastic into fuel working by the principle of thermal pyrolysis process. Three experiments are carried out to test the proper function of the reactor. It was found that about 84% of fuel obtained from one kilogram of plastic at temperature of 360°C. The feed stock that was used for the experiment was plastic wastes of polyethylene with different proportion LDPE and HDPE. The method feeding the feedstock to the reactor was by opining the top cover of the reactor for every batch. The reactor was heating externally using furnaces built for the purpose and at the outlet of reactor the condenser is attached to condense the vapors coming out of it. The reactor temperature was controlled by thermocouple sensor fixed inside the reactor and this sensor connected to an external PD controller. A separation procedure of fuel was employed by controlling the internal temperature of the reactor. Three types of fuel obtained from these experiments which are similar to gasoil, kerosene and diesel temperature range from 130°C - 230°C, 230°C -270°C and 230°C and above respectively. The fuel obtained from the experiment tested and characterized in national petroleum supply enterprise laboratory and meet the physical and chemical characteristic of fuels for different applications.