Improving light olefins and light oil production using Ru/MCM-48 in catalytic pyrolysis of waste tire

Abstract

Mobil Composition of Matter (MCM) is the name given for a series of mesoporous materials. The MCM-48 is one of three phases of the mesoporous materials, which is cubic crystalline structure. The MCM-48 in this work was synthesized from silatrane route, and Ru metal was loaded by incipient wetness impregnation. This work investigated the activity and selectivity of MCM-48 and Ru/MCM-48 used as the catalysts for waste tire pyrolysis. The results showed that Ru/MCM-48 improved the gas yield. In addition, the use of Ru/MCM-48 catalyst produced light olefins twice as much as the non-catalytic pyrolysis. On the other hand, the catalyst helped to improve the oil quality by increasing light oil portion. Furthermore, it also reduced poly- and polar-aromatic compounds and sulfur content in the derived oil. Surface area analysis, XRD, and CHNS analysis were performed to explain the experimental results. © 2011 Published by Elsevier Ltd.