Essential characteristics of plastics waste for pyrolysis process: Comparison of selected packaging plastics and PVC

Abstract

The poor degradability of plastics has led to huge plastics deposit in a landfill of which pyrolysis technology has been proposed to solve plastics waste problem. This paper reports the study on characteristics of two kinds of plastic wastes: selected packaging plastics and PVC. Characterizations have been performed for investigating water content, ash content, and decomposition temperature. The results revealed that the water content of packaging plastic waste was 0.69 ± 0.11%, while PVC was 1.22 ± 0.24%. The ash contents are 2.36 ± 1.03 % and 27.24±1.73 % for packaging plastics waste and PVC waste respectively. Plastic waste from packaging application and PVC waste decomposed at a temperature of 300-500°C and 200-800°C respectively. Decomposition of PVC waste took place in three stages: 200-370°C, 370-525°C and 600-800°C. It is recommended that the pyrolysis process should be conducted in the range of 300-500°C for packaging plastic waste and 200-800°C for PVC waste.