Combustion of plastic pyrolysis oil in steam-atomizing burner and its application for pyrolysis process

Abstract

In recent years, there has been growing interest in alternative energy sources to fossil fuels. One of them is plastic pyrolysis oil (ppo) that converted from plastic waste by the pyrolysis process. The oil could be used as a fuel for combustion process in some industries. The performance of ppo combustion in steam-atomizing burner was investigated to determine the feasibility of diesel oil displacing in pyrolysis process heating. A prototype steam-atomizing burner was installed to burn plastic pyrolysis oil, with variable 3, 6, and 9 bar steam pressure, to pyrolyze 10 kg/batch low density polyethylene (LDPE) waste in a batch reactor. The pyrolysis process was maintained at 3500C along 2 hours at atmospheric condition. The flame temperature, the length of flame, fuel consumption, heating rate, and pyrolysis yield was observed along the process. The experiment shows that the increase of steam pressure will increase all parameters. The most optimum condition is plastic pyrolysis oil combustion using steam-atomizing burner at 9 bar steam pressure, which consumes 28 litre of fuel and yields 57% of pyrolysis oil.