Production of Bio-Oil from Plastic-Biomass Mixture by Pyrolysis in the Presence of Sodium Carbonate Catalys

Abstract

The work presented in this study explores the process of co-pyrolysis of biomass Vachellia Farnesiana (VF) and plastic polypropylene (PP) with different biomass and plastic mixtures and with or without the addition of sodium carbonate catalyst. The goal of the project is to find bio-oil sample with good heating value and yield for use in energy production. For this purpose, the copyrolysis process was used for biomass Vachellia Farnesiana and plastic Polypropylene mixture. A round bottom flask was used as a batch reactor. Overall, four process parameters were varied in a series of experiments. The most optimum process parameters were found to be temperature 450 oC, residence time 40 minutes, N2 flow rate 50 ml/min and catalyst loading of 5 %. Under the influence of these conditions, best bio-oil yield and heating value (HHV) was found which were 63.4 % and 40.44 MJ/kg respectively. After optimum process conditions were determined, experiments were conducted with different biomass loadings with and without sodium carbonate catalyst. The results confirmed the use of 30% biomass loading provides best results in copyrolsis. After these experiments, TGA and DTGA of biomass and bio-oil were performed and their results showed that their behavior was similar to other biomass and bio-oil samples given in literature. GCMS analysis was also performed which revealed that by using sodium carbonate as catalyst, quantity of alkanes was increased, and that phenols and carboxylic acids slightly reduced. Due to presence of alkanes and alkenes, the heating value of bio-oil was increased. Overall, it was proven that sodium carbonate can positively catalyze the co- pyrolysis process to produce good quality bio-oil