Pyrolysis of Expanded Polystyrene Waste to Obtain Liquid Fuels

Authors

Ramos, Williams

Zamudio, Valery

Villegas, Erick

Manrique, Herbert

Pretell, Victor

Abstract

This research studies the effect of operating temperature and particle size on the yield of liquid products from the pyrolysis process of expanded polystyrene (EPS) waste. For the experimental development, the EPS samples were collected, washed, and crushed, in addition a pretreatment was carried out in which the raw material was heated at 150 °C for 10 min to reduce its volume, preserving the initial mass. The pretreated sample was ground and sieved into two different particle sizes (0-5 and 5-10 mm). For the experiments, a horizontal tubular reactor was used, which operated at a pressure of 34.66 kPa for 3 hours and at a heating rate of 10 ºC/min. Pyrolysis was carried out at temperatures of 400, 450, 500 and 550 °C, varying with the two particle sizes indicated above. It was determined that the operating temperature and particle size have a direct effect on the performance of liquid products. Likewise, the operating conditions that maximize the yield of liquid products were the temperature of 550 °C and the particle size of 5-10 mm, obtaining a yield of liquid products of 97.8 %, gaseous products of 1.2%, and solid products of 1.0%.