Yaroslavl "National Ecological Company", together with researchers from Novosibirsk State University, is working on a technology for creating ecological fuel from non-recyclable plastic. This is plastic that is either contaminated or heavily mixed with other waste during waste sorting.
According to the press service of NSU, NEC has come up with a technology for processing such plastic into environmentally friendly motor fuel. First, the plastic undergoes pyrolysis at a temperature of 400 to 600 °C, then rectification, in which the mixture breaks down into fractions according to boiling point.
But, according to the developers, the high content of unsaturated hydrocarbons makes the fuel reactive and dangerous for internal combustion engines, and it also quickly oxidizes and tars.
Therefore, scientists from NSU are now developing a catalytic technology for it. The first experiments have already been carried out successfully on the NEC experimental unit.
The catalytic system maintains a temperature of about 300 °C, high hydrogen pressure, and the mixture is hydrogenated. At the outlet, we obtained a transparent liquid with the usual non-pungent smell of motor fuel and almost zero sulfur content, suitable for use in internal combustion engines.
Now the hydrogenation unit will be modified so that it can operate for more than a thousand hours in a row, and the optimal parameters for the catalysis process will be selected on an industrial scale. It will be finalized at the Department of Physical Chemistry of the Faculty of Natural Sciences of NSU.
It is planned that in 2024 an autonomous catalytic unit will appear that will be able to process kilograms of waste per hour. In addition, an industrial sample of a pyrolysis system is currently being created, capable of handling a ton of waste per hour.
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