Co-pyrolysis of scrap tire and plastic using coal derived fly-ash

Used automobile tires and thermoplastics (e.g. polypropylene) have become liability of modern societies and several avenues have been explored for their suitable disposal. Pyrolytic liquefaction of tires and plastics have attracted significant attention since the process can provide value-added products such as liquid transportation fuels and chemicals while mitigating the waste disposal issues. Pyrolysis can be done both in absence (thermal) or presence (catalytic) of a catalyst. Catalytic pyrolysis is favored by less demanding reaction conditions and better quality of product. Catalytic copyrolysis has the additional advantage in using a wider feedstock and a possible synergistic effects from different feeds during molecular transformations. This work investigates the effect of untreated fly-ash (class F) as catalyst for the copyrolysis of scrap tire and polypropylene at 300^o C and atmospheric pressure using batch type pyrolysis reactor and also studied the effect of fly-ash during pyrolysis of scrap tire using Pyro-GC/MS. Copyrolysis was carried out using various ratio of scrap tire and polypropylene at 300^o C, whereas the pyrolysis of scrap tire in pyro-GC/MS was carried out at 500^o C. The maximum yield (23.33%) of oil was obtained at a ratio of 60:40 (w/w) of scrap tire and polypropylene in presence of 20wt% of fly ash catalyst. The oils were characterized by NMR, GC-MS, FT-IR and elemental analysis.