Scientists of the Federal Research Center “Institute of Catalysis of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences” managed to create an environmentally friendly thermolysis oil with a 200-fold reduced chlorine content from plastic waste. In the future, based on the discovery, the authors plan to create a no-waste cycle for the production of petroleum products, the experts of the institute told socialbites.ca.
“We’re still in the early stages of the research, but the aim of our work is to create a closed loop. We make plastic from petroleum and then we want to convert it back into petroleum products. This thermolysis oil is added to petroleum products to evaluate plastic waste, then a more environmentally friendly fuel emerges,” he says. Valeria Krestyaninova, one of the study’s authors, is a laboratory assistant in the Catalysis Institute Catalytic Process Technology Department, from the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, told socialbites.ca.
To date, plastic production volumes have reached 500 million tons per year, while only 20% of plastic waste is recycled, the rest is harmful to the environment. Therefore, it is important to look for effective methods for its processing.
One of the most promising areas is the conversion of plastic into fuel based on the so-called thermolysis oil. This is a plastic waste treatment product, which is considered a promising additive to motor fuels or an independent fuel.
Researchers synthesized thermolysis oil from various household plastics such as polystyrene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, and low-density polyethylene. They managed to reduce the chlorine content in the raw materials received in order of size.
At the same time, such oil, according to the expert, differs little from that created by classical methods.
“We start the hydroprocessing process and look at the behavior of our new product. The results show that the properties have hardly changed,” Krestyaninova added.
The researchers’ immediate plans are to study the mechanism of chlorine removal when interacting with catalysts to improve the efficiency of the process.
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