Tertiary recycling of PVC-containing plastic waste by copyrolysis with cattle manure

The corrosion from pyrolysis of PVC in plastic waste was reduced by copyrolysis of PVC with cattle manure. The optimization of pyrolysis conditions between PVC and cattle manure was studied via a statistical method, the Box–Behnken model. The pyrolysis reaction was operated in a tubular reactor. Heating rate, reaction temperature and the PVC:cattle manure ratio were optimized in the range of 1–5 °C/min, 250–450 °C and the ratio of 1:1–1:5, respectively. The suitable conditions which provided the highest HCl reduction efficiency were the lowest heating rate of 1 °C/min, the highest reaction temperature of 450 °C, and the PVC:cattle manure ratio of 1:5, with reliability of more than 90%. The copyrolysis of the mixture of PVC-containing plastic and cattle manure was operated at optimized conditions and the synergistic effect was studied on product yields. The presence of manure decreased the oil yield by about 17%. The distillation fractions of oil at various boiling points from both the presence and absence of manure were comparable. The BTX concentration decreased rapidly when manure was present and the chlorinated hydrocarbon was reduced by 45%. However, the octane number of the gasoline fraction was not affected by manure and was in the range of 99–100.