Experimental Studies on Bench Scaled Thermal Plasma Pyrolysis Reactor for Hospital Waste Plastic Materials

Pollution from plastic waste is a major environmental issue in the current scenario. The excessive use of disposable plastics causes environmental disasters by creating a barrier for rainwater sink. Plastic also emits harmful gases to the environment with continuous exposure to sunlight and heat. To curb the increasing volume of Hospital plastic waste generated, a bench scaled thermal plasma pyrolysis reactor is developed, which decomposes the waste plastic by thermal pyrolysis. The model is compact, portable, easy to use, and requires very little maintenance. It uses thermal plasma to heat the waste plastics in the reactor. Pyrolysis experiments are conducted in the range of 400OC to 600OC at a heating rate of 18OC /min to 20OC /min, where 78 –86% pyrolysis oil, 12–22% ofsyngas and 2–13% of chars are obtained as by-products. It is resulted by the breaking of the molecular structure of plastics and the formation of Syngas, that is condensed into synthetic fuel. Maximum yielding of oil, exploited gas, and solid char is detected at 550OC, 600OC, and 450OC respectively. The waste residual char is also categorized by the mono-graphic study. The model decreases the amount of plastic waste by 88.7% in volume thereby reducing the harmful effects caused to all living creatures and it also creates a fuel as a by-product which can be used as an additive or replacement to conventional fuels.