Characterization, Comparative Study, and Kinetic Modeling of Waste Plastic and Biomass Blend for Bio-Fuel Application

Abstract

Pyrolysis of plastic Waste is the best way to manage the waste while producing biofuels which can be improved to replace diesel. However, thermal pyrolysis of plastic has some drawbacks, namely the high decomposition temperature. Co-pyrolytic processes have drawn much attention for offering an alternate method of disposing of and turning waste plastic and lignocellulosic biomass into high-value-added products. In this work, pine sawdust (SD) co-pyrolysis with Polypropylene (PP) and polystyrene (PS) was investigated, which resulted in a decrease in the decomposition temperature. The major goal of this work is to better understand the co-pyrolysis of biomass and plastic waste by applying two model-fitting techniques (Criado's and Coats-Redfern). Copyrolysis behavior of pine sawdust, waste plastics, and their blends was characterized using a thermogravimetric analyzer (TGA). The data obtained from TGA reveals the decomposition behavior of the materials involved and their synergistic effect. Seven different co-pyrolysis tests were conducted using (TGA) at a heating rate of 200C/min for different binary and ternary mixed compositions of the samples. The values of the activation energy (Ea) and pre-exponential factor (A0) of waste plastics (PP and PS) and pine sawdust (SD) decomposition were found to be 111.4, 110.46, and 48.78kJ/mol, respectively. Adding pine sawdust to plastic decreased the activation energy of the plastic decomposition reaction to 99.35 kJ/mol. This positive synergy shows that the copyrolysis of plastic with biomass decrease the plastic's decomposition temperature and increase the biomass sample's conversion rate.