Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
initially thermally processed followed by catalyzed thermal degradation
(Horvat and Ng, 2005; Yang et al., 2013). Application of pyrolysis to plastics
waste and rubber waste (Al-Salem et al., 2009) has been reported in the
literature. A state-of-the-art pyrolysis unit (close to commercialization)
1
is conservatively estimated to convert a ton of waste plastics into three
to six barrels (31.5 US gallons per barrel) of fuel oil; the 29 million tons
of presently landfilled plastic waste can potentially be converted into 3.6
billion gallons of oil with minimal emissions associated with the process
(Themelis et al., 2011).
Figure 9.6
illustrates the main features of a pyrolysis
process.
