Waste pyrolysis oil source of petrochemicals or just another type of fuel?

Pyrolysis oils are rich sources of aromatic hydrocarbons. A series of sampl es were taken from an industrial waste pyrolysis plant and analyzed for the ir content of BTX aromatics, EPA-PAH, PASH and phenols. Sampling took place during different phases of the pilot process (1984-87), the test phase of the commercial process (1996) and the current process (1997-98). Light and heavy oils from the pilot phase and the test phase of the commercial proces s consist primarily of aromatics and can be compared to coal tar. They cont ain 10-20% of BTX aromatics, 7-11% of naphthalene and 0.5-1.5% of methylnap hthalene, biphenyl, acenaphthylene, phenanthrene and pyrene, respectively. However, light oil from the current process mainly consists of aliphatic hy drocarbons plus a small amount of aromatics (10 % BTX aromatics, 1 % naphth alene). This material is more comparable with diesel fuel, but it still yie lds more than 0.005 % of benzo[a]pyrene which, according to German regulati ons, requires to be marked as carcinogenic material.