Green Energy Harvesting from Waste Plastic Materials by Solar Driven Microwave Pyrolysis

摘要

A large part of used non-bio-degradable waste plastic material causes enormous environmental problems by restricting the flow of the streams and drainage system, spoiling the fertility of the soil and also instigating harms to the animals. The matter has become a great concern for the civilized life. In order to maintain environmental balance, either recycling or converting plastic/polythene waste to useful materials is the best alternative, which has been considered here. The process preferably should be eco-friendly and economic. Polythene and plastics are basically long chain of hydrocarbons and such long chain of hydrocarbons can be disintegrated to their suitable simpler stable monomer by pyrolysis Here, the working principle of a eco-friendly “Plastic to Fuel” pyrolysis conversion plant along with its design and development methodology is being discussed in detail. High-density and low-density polyethylene (HDPE, LDPE) wastes are pyrolyzed at moderately high temperature ($sim$ 450° C- 500° C) under sub-atmospheric pressure inside a pyrolysis reactor chamber. Sodium bentonite clay acts as the catalyst to promote the conversion efficiency. The waste polythene mass is quickly heated with the help of a solar driven microwave oven. The efficient dielectric heating property of microwave will be utilized to attain the pyrolysis temperature quickly. This technique reduces the time taken for the pyrolysis reactions and also the total energy needed by the process. The solar energy driven plant makes it a cost effective process. The produced pyrolyzed gas is allowed to pass through a water cooled condenser for distillation set up. Thus, major part of the produced gas will be condensed to form liquid. Usually, several gases produced in burning, pollute the environment, but in this vacuum pyrolysis method the emission of harmful gases are negligible.