Waste plastics to hydrocarbons?

[reena1957]

Is there some free literature on the above? Any working plants by reputed big companies? I have read abstracts of a few papers but nothing giving much details? Someone is trying to sell our refinery a visbreaker cum Vacuum distillation followed by hydrodewaxing to produce diesel out of molten waste plastics!!Is it that simple?

 

[Compositepro]

It should be possible but the problem is ecomomic feasibility. It is difficult to make a consistent product from variable feedstock. A simpler alternative is incineration in a boiler to produce energy.

 

[StoneCold]

reena1957
compositepro has a point. The theory is good but in reality people are too lazy to sort out the plastics correctly for recycling. So then you have to have some type of sorting facility to remove unwanted plastic types. The labor cost for that manual type of sorting really puts a dent in the economics and without it you probably will have a hard time making a consistant product.

Stonecold.

 

[epoisses]

Since when is diesel a consistent product, being produced out of many different crudes? As soon as (agree that this is the tricky biy) selective plastic waste collection is occurring on a large scale (it happens in France and I guess Germany is even further), one should take a look at using it more effectively than just burning it. I expect it should be much more economically interesting in the long run to be able to replace diesel from crude oil than to find another combustible for a domestic waste incinerator.

 

[moltenmetal]

Burning it IS energy-efficient. Making a liquid fuel out of it to burn later is LESS energy efficient than simply burning it in the first place- if your intention is to simply make heat to make steam etc. Better to replace stationary fuel uses with this stuff than to go to all the cost and bother of making a transporation-grade liquid fuel out of it. But I guess that's not as "sexy"...

This presumes that you have the plastic separated into a waste stream without a lot of water-bearing low fuel-value waste hanging around.

And it presumes that you've done a very good job to ensure that you have no PVC in the waste stream to avoid generating chlorinated dioxins and furans during combustion. Ahh- there's the rub!

 

[Engineer6512]

Pollution considerations should also be looked at. Some plastics can give off toxic fumes and other pollutants when incinerated directly. It is much easier to control the pollutants from burning hydrocarbons.

Steamguy2

http://www.SteamPlantEngineering.com

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