Study on the thermal pyrolysis of medical waste (plastic syringe) for the production of useful liquid fuels

Abstract

Energy crisis have led to a vast research on various alternative sources of energy in order to cope up with the growth in standard of living of all human beings across the world. And Waste disposal poses a problem which is increasingly difficult to ignore. While the increasing volumes of generated waste are a problem, the types of waste being generated further complicate the challenge of disposal. Waste-to-energy is an obvious replacement for medical waste incinerators whose numbers are likely to decline due to more stringent emission standards. The high plastic content of medical waste is looked at as a potential feedstock for a novel pyrolytic reactor. Hence, various technologies and processes are evolved to utilize the waste resource efficiently. Pyrolysis is one of the latest technologies which have the potential to provide valuable liquid and gaseous fuels from these medical waste sources. In this work, thermal pyrolysis of plastic medical waste (plastic syringes) will be performed in a semi batch reactor at a temperature of 450°C for the production of pyrolytic oil. The physical properties analysis of liquid product is in comparable range with physical properties of commercial transportation fuels