Design and Fabrication of a Fixed Bed Pyrolyser for the Pyrolysis of Waste Plastics (Pure-water Sachets)

Plastics wastes continue to pose as a threat to the environment. Plastic wastes are major causes of environmental pollution, their non-biodegradability nature contributes to hazardous adverse effect they have on the environment. Polyethylene or polyethene is the most common type of plastic as well as plastic waste. As of 2017, over 100 million tons of polyethene resins was produced accounting for about 29% of the total plastics market in the world of which, only about 9% is recycled. Plastic wastes especially polyethylene accounts for one of the largest municipal solid wastes in Nigeria. In this research, the design and fabrication of plastics pyrolyser was carried-out. Polyethylene was pyrolysed in the locally fabricated fixed bed pyrolyser reactor to produce pyro oil as the main desired product. Waste polyethylene popularly known as pure-water sachet (PWS) was pyrolysed at 350- 450 ˚C for 4-5 hours to obtain liquid fuel oil, semi-solid residue and gases. The oil yield obtained from the reactor was found to be 41.1%. The pyro oil properties include: a viscosity of 1.208 cSt, density of 760 kg/m3 , ash content of 5.52 %, flash point of 57.6 ˚C, pour point of -12 ˚C, fire point of 64.7 ˚C and cetane number of 71.49.