CATALYTIC PLASTICS CRACKING FOR RECOVERY OF GASOLINE-RANGE HYDROCARBONS FROM MUNICIPAL PLASTIC WASTES

This paper reviews recent developments in plastics cracking, a process developed to recycle plastic wastes into useful petrochemical materia ls. Under thermal cracking conditions, plastic wastes can be decompose d into three fractions: gas, liquid and solid residue. The liquid prod ucts are usually composed of higher boiling point hydrocarbons. By ado pting customary fluid cracking catalysts and reforming catalysts, more aromatics and naphthenes in the C-6-C-8 range can be produced, which are valuable gasoline-range hydrocarbons. More tests are, however, nee ded to verify the pyrolysis process in a pilot scale particularly for treatment of mixtures of bulk plastics. Plastics cracking is only an e lementary conversion technology; its application has to be combined wi th other technologies such as municipal solid waste collection, classi fication and pretreatment at the front end, as well as hydrocarbon dis tillation and purification at the back end. Social, environmental and economic factors are also important in industrial implementation of th e technology. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.