Continuous Thermal Process for Cracking Polyolefin Wastes to Produce Hydrocarbons

Continuous Thermal Process for Cracking Polyolefin Wastes to Produce Hydrocarbons 

Feedstock Recycling and Pyrolysis of Waste Plastics Converting Waste Plastics into Diesel and Other Fuels Edited by J. Scheirs and W. Kaminsky 2006 John Wiley Sons, Ltd ISBN 0-470-02152-7 

Hydrocarbon thermal cracking (or pyrolysis) has been practised in the petroleum industry for more than a century, and the problems raised by such an operation are now largely solved. Thus, this work deals only with the questions specific to the polyolefin cracking based on common practice and procedures. 

Polyolefins consist of very long chains of the alkene type with thousands of carbon atoms, but possessing only one final double link in the a position. Theory shows that thermal cracking leads to shorter molecules, but of the same type. These shorter chains generally possess only one final double link in the a position. Most of these molecules are therefore a-olefins. 

Moreover, it should be uoted that catalytic cracking can be considered only in the liquid or the vapour phase and only with sufficiently purified hydrocarbons. It is practised 

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