PREPARATION OF DIESEL FROM PLASTIC

WASTE

A RECENT INVENTION TO SAVE NATURAL

RESOURCES
WHY TURN PLASTIC TO DIESEL FUEL?
• Estimates show that less than 5% of the plastic manufactured each year is recycled, with
production of the material set to increase by 3.8% every year until 2030, adding to the 6.3
billion tonnes churned out since production began 60 years ago. The majority ends up in our
oceans, posing a disruption to marine ecosystems, which researchers predict would take a
minimum of 450 years to biodegrade, if ever.

• The solution of plastics-to-fuel holds promise in not only curbing such pervasive pollution but
also providing a significant economic benefit to regions. The American Chemistry Council
estimates plastic-to-fuel facilities in the US alone would create nearly 39,000 jobs and almost
$9bn in economic output, making the global market potential of such an industry huge.

• Plastic-derived fuels are also capable of producing a cleaner burning fuel than traditional
sources due to their low sulphur content, considering the majority of developing nations use
sulphur-heavy diesel.
 PROCESS OF CONVERSION
• Generally, turning plastic to diesel process needs two major steps. First is the plastic pyrolysis
plant (also called plastic to oil plant) which is mainly used to turn waste plastic into fuel oil, and
then through the oil distillation equipment, it can make the fuel oil processed into diesel. So we
can know that the plastic pyrolysis plant has a close connection with the distillation machine. The
whole plastic to diesel plant means turning plastic to fuel oil and then to diesel.

• Firstly, the plastics need to be converted into fuel oil by plastic waste pyrolysis plant, which
consists of reactor, manifold, condenser system, oil tank, cooling system, hydroseal and
dedusting system. The pyrolysis equipment will heat the reactor with high temperature, and
when it reaches the related temperature, the waste plastic will generate oil gas in the reactor;
then the oil gas will become the liquid oil after passing through the subsequent connected
cooling system. The oil can be used as fuel directly. When the oil is fully discharged, the left
material is called carbon black, which can be used as additive.
• Secondly, use the oil distillation machines to turn plastic oil into diesel. As for this kind of
equipment, it is made up of the distillation system, heating system, dedusting system and
intelligent electric control system. First of all, put the plastic pyrolysis oil into the tubular
furnace to heat, and then through the distillation system, it can produce the oil steam; next,
the oil steam will be fractionated into basic diesel through the condenser system; and then
after sedimentation and filtration treatment, it will become qualified diesel adding bleaching
agent.

• The final products of waste plastic pyrolysis machines: fuel oil and carbon black. The
proportion of the end products varies according to the kind of plastic material;

• The final products of distillation: diesel or gasoline, waste gas and heavy oil slag, accounting
for 70%, 10%, 5%, 15% respectively (also different from the different materials).
 TECHNOLOGIES NEEDED FOR PROCESS
 PLASTIC TO OIL PLANT:-
1. Waste gas recycling technology

• About the dust gas, we adopt secondary treatment processes. Firstly, flue gas will be cooled
down, then conveyed to strong atomization tower with diameter 1 meter height 3 meters
through draft fun. The flue gas coming into strong atomization power would be dedusted with
ceramic ring, then it passed by strong spray layer, and in the last, most of the gas stay in the
mesh material lay, and few steam into chimney emissions. If adding alkaline substances into
water, some sulfur, and chlorine gas will be neutralized, salt generated then solidify for
recycling.

• About the control of Dioxin, furnace producing few cracked gas into hot blast stove for
combustion, temperature of hot blast stove up to 1000 degrees, at this temperature dioxin
will decomposition and disappear, a small amount of dioxin will generated again in the
process of furnace heating and for removal dioxin, activated carbon adsorber and bag type
dedusting device would be equipped with strong spray tower for adsorption of dioxins.
Therefore, the equipment is basically no dioxin emissions.
2. Waste liquid treatment scheme

• The water consumption in the waste plastic to diesel process is very small, which is mainly used
to flue gas purification and waste gas purification. The water will be acidic after absorbing the
acid, however, the water will be recycled after alkali neutralization sedimentation. The small
amount of salt from settlement generated can be harmless natural degradation.

3. Waste solid treatment scheme

• The slag from the pyrolysis reactor, can be used as burdening for building material. The steel
wire from the tires can be directly recycled for using.
 PLASTIC OIL DISTILLATION EQUIPMENTS
1. Waste gas collection

• Waste gas mainly generates the coal-fired fuel gas of the tubular furnace and some combustible
gas which can not be condensed. Generally, we have four filters dedusting system which can
thoroughly purify and clean the smoke to meet the national emission standard.

2. Waste water

• The waste water of this program produced by the raw material cleaning and hydroseal. According
to data provided by the construction unit, each ton of fuel oil will use 50 L water, and the whole
program will use 7.5 thousand ton fuel oil, so based on this estimate, the waste water is about
4.3m3/d,1300 m3/a, there are some harmful and polluted elements including pH, SS, petroleum.
So we also have made some efficient measures to deal with the waste water, firstly we can pull
the processing waste water into weak harmonic liquid pool, after the oil treatment, making the
neutral water have a three stage filtration. When the quality of water is good, we can use on part
to cooling the reactor and push the combustible gas into burner, the left part will be pulled into
sewage pipe network of industrial park. And finally runs into the river.
FALLBACKS
• The waste-to-fuel industry has received some opposition from environmental organisations,
with protests causing the halting of a planned waste-to-fuel facility in Lancashire last year,
and investigations launched into such sites in Canberra, Australia following
environmentalists’ complaints.

• Larry O’Loughlin, executive director of the ACT Conservation Council, spoke to The
Guardian about the environmental threat he says waste-to-plastic sites pose. He rejected the
notion that the industry is a form of recycling, as the plastics may only be used once before
being turned into fuel. He also argued that widespread adoption of the method could slow
efforts to find fuel alternatives, saying: “At a time of reducing carbon emissions, they are
introducing another fossil fuel. The ACT is trying to move to zero emissions by 2050. How
are we going to do that by setting up a refinery here?”
SAMPLE VIDEO(https://youtu.be/KVnbU9MQpmc)
RESEARCHES AND DEVELOPMENT

 Meet the Hyderabad man

converting 'dead' plastic
into petrol and diesel

 https://www.thenewsminute
.com/article/meet-
hyderabad-man-converting-
dead-plastic-petrol-and-
diesel-65164
 https://phys.org/news/2019-06-group-plastic-products-jet-
fuel.html
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320744259_Alt
ernative_Diesel_from_Waste_Plastics
 https://www.google.co.in/url?
sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=14&cad=rja&uact=8
&ved=2ahUKEwjamo7AoIboAhUbT30KHWmCDPYQFjANeg
QIBxAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fdownloads.hindawi.com
%2Fjournals%2Fjeph