a plant convert plastic to diesel by catalytic cracking. what is its efficiency
Answers
Various technologies are being developed to overcome the drawback of plastics, namely, their non-biodegradability. Though work has been done to make futuristic biodegradable plastics, there have not been many conclusive steps towards cleaning up the existing problem. Recycling waste plastics into reusable plastic products is a conventional strategy followed to address this issue for years. However this technique has not given impressive results as cleaning and segregation of waste plastics was found difficult. Over a 100 million tones of plastics are produced annually worldwide, and the used products have become a common feature at overflowing bins. Plastics is placed in a landfill, it becomes a carbon sink, Incineration, blast furnace, gasification are not much appreciated solution to the problem, as toxic gases are produced and their cost of production is quite high. Pyrolysis of waste plastics into fuel is one of the best means of conserving valuable petroleum resources in addition to protect the environment. This process involves catalytic degradation of waste plastic into fuel range hydrocarbon i.e. petrol, diesel and kerosene etc. A catalytic cracking process in which waste plastic were cracked at very high temperature, the resulting gases were condensed to recover liquid fuels. Type of plastics also effect the rate of conversion of into fuel and the results of this process are found to be better than other alternate methods which are used for the disposal of waste plastic.