Promising potential for waste plastics coprocessing
- Dept. of Energy, Pittsburgh, PA (United States). Pittsburgh Energy Technology Center
Coprocessing carbon-based municipal waste materials with coal and other fossil fuels can result in recovering and recycling their inherent value by producing transportation fuels and other useful by-products, while at the same time addressing critical national environmental and economic needs. If the current annual production of 90 million tons of paper and plastic, 350 million tires and 1.4 billion gallons of lubricating oil as wastes, were recovered by liquefying them with coal, it is projected that 300 million barrels of oil could be produced essentially equal to the amount of oil now being imported in one month. Recent experimental results on the coprocessing of waste materials with coal, are encouraging. The Consortium for Fossil Fuel Liquefaction Science (CFFLS) and PETC have investigated the feasibility of coprocessing coal and hydrocarbon-based (mixtures of rubber, plastics, and waste oil) waste products in laboratory-scale reactors. Larger-scale tests completed in 1995 at Hydrocarbon Technologies, Inc. (HTI) show that the process concepts being developed can be operated at commercial size. A preliminary analysis of a coal and plastic waste coprocessing plant indicated that the oil produced may cost one-third less than that from a two-stage, coal-only liquefaction facility of the same capacity. This cost is highly dependent on the acquisition and preparation cost of the plastic; these costs require more definition work.
- OSTI ID:
- 504644
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-960954--
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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