Catalytic pyrolysis of a residual plastic waste using zeolites produced by coal fly ash

The plastic film residue (PFR) of a plastic waste recycling process was selected as pyrolysis feed. Both thermal and catalytic pyrolysis experiments were performed and coal fly ash (CFA) and X zeolites synthesized from CFA (X/CFA) were used as pyrolysis catalysts. The main goal is to study the effect of low-cost catalysts on yields and quality of pyrolysis oils. NaX/CFA, obtained using the fusion/hydrothermal method, underwent ion exchange followed by calcination in order to produce HX/CFA. Firstly, thermogravimetry and differential scanning calorimetry (TG and DSC, respectively) analyses evaluated the effect of catalysts on the PFR degradation temperature and the process energy demand. Subsequently, pyrolysis was carried out in a bench scale reactor adopting the liquid-phase contact mode. HX/CFA and NaX/CFA reduced the degradation temperature of PFR from 753 to 680 and 744 K, respectively, while the degradation energy from 2.27 to 1.47 and 2.07 MJkg−1, respectively. Pyrolysis runs showed that the highest oil yield (44 wt %) was obtained by HX/CFA, while the main products obtained by thermal pyrolysis were wax and tar. Furthermore, up to 70% of HX/CFA oil was composed by gasoline range hydrocarbons. Finally, the produced gases showed a combustion energy up to 8 times higher than the pyrolysis energy needs.