Investigation of the Effect of Polystyrene (PS) Waste Washing Process and Pyrolysis Temperature on (PS) Pyrolysis Product Quality

Pyrolysis has been proposed as a viable processing route for recovering the organic compounds from polystyrene (PS) plastic wastes as fuels and chemical feedstock. In this study, PS plastic wastes were collected; some portion of them was washed in field-simulated laboratory scale system. Both washed and unwashed PS plastic waste samples were pyrolyzed at fixed bed reactor pyrolysis equipment. The pyrolysis process has been applied at 300, 400, 500, 600 and 700°C with 5°C/min heating rate. The effect of pyrolysis temperature and plastic washing process on the pyrolysis yields and solid, oil and gas products quality were investigated. The solid products (char) were characterized by FTIR and SEM. Oil and gas products were analyzed by gas chromatography coupled with a mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The heat values were determined using an automatic calorimetric bomb. Pyrolysis oil products composed of heavy hydrocarbons (C10-C40). Heating values were found between 4300-4800 kCal. Pyrolysis gases of both wased and unwashed PS mainly contain gas samples contain pentene, pentane, hexane, benzene, heptane, toluene, octane, ethylbenzene and styrene. Each of these components has potential for use as fuel or as raw materials for various industrial processes after proper separation process.