Energy Recovery Study for Polyethylene and Cotton by Thermal Plasma Degradation

Joshi, A.; Nema, S.K.; Dave, P.N.

Energy Recovery Study for Polyethylene and Cotton by Thermal Plasma Degradation

Document Type : Full article

Authors

A. Joshi ¹

S.K. Nema ²

P.N. Dave ¹

¹ Department of Chemical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, India

² Scientist E, Facilitation Center for Industrial Plasma Technologies, Gandhinagar, India

Abstract

In the present study, the main focus was on plasma pyrolysis and gasification of organic waste, specifically polyethylene and cotton waste and exploring the energy recovery possibilities from the gases obtained after the plasma pyrolysis and gasification. In pyrolysis the gases formed are Syn gas (H2 + CO), CH 4, higher hydrocarbons along with soot particles. The waste is disintegrated using thermal plasma (which is generated using graphite plasma torch) in oxygen starved environment (pyrolysis) and also in partial oxidation condition (gasification). Experiments have been carried out by varying pyrolysis chamber temperature from 500 0C to 700 0C and polyethylene and cotton are fed into the pyrolysis chamber. It has been observed that plasma pyrolysis of polyethylene in the temperature range of 500 to 700 0C yields H 2 as main component around 30-40% volume basis along with CO, CO2, CH 4, C2H 6, C2H 4, C2H 2 and soot particles whereas pyrolysis of cotton, on the other hand provides less H 2 around 15-20 %. However, it has also been observed that in plasma gasification H2, CO, CH 4 content in the exhaust gases reduces to some extent (2-5%). The theoretical and experimental energy recovery comparisons have also been carried out.

Keywords

Energy Recovery

Hydrogen

Polyethylene

Cotton

Thermal Plasma