Characterization of liquid fraction obtained from pyrolysis of post- consumer mixed plastic waste: A comparing between measured and calculated parameters

Abstract

In this study, thermal pyrolysis of a real mixture of plastic wastes collected from municipal solid waste of Granada (Spain) was performed to obtain a liquid oil. The goals of the present study were: 1) identify the optimal conditions to obtain maximum yields of the liquid fraction, 2) experimentally measure basic characteristic parameters of pyrolytic oils, 3) use correlations or equations used in the hydrocarbon industry to estimate the measured properties, 4) make a comparison between the measured and calculated properties by predictive mathematical expressions, 5) develop new correlations for estimating pyrolytic oil properties. As main results, the optimal temperature to obtain maximum yield of liquid fraction was 500 °C. The physical and chemical properties of pyrolytic oils changed as temperature increased due to the presence of hydrogenation and dehydrogenation reactions. Also, the approximation of the chromatography data allowed to determine, by simulated distillation, the potential fuel yields that will be obtained if processed as synthetic crude in an atmospheric tower and a vacuum tower. Finally, two novel modified equations were proposed to estimate the specific gravity and refractive index parameter for pyrolytic oils.