A preliminary study of thermal plasma gasification of an automobile waste under CO2 atmosphere for high calorific value syngas production

Abstract

Plastics in automobile waste pose major ecological issues since they are non-biodegradable and expensive to recycle, but can potentially be used to recover energy due to their high heating value. Therefore, the current study performs thermal plasma gasification of a car dashboard (CDB) in CO₂ atmosphere to convert into a tar-free syngas. CO₂ is chosen due to its environmental attention and ability to break the aromatic hydrocarbons by oxygen-free radicals formed under plasma. To measure the process yield, the influence of plasma power, CDB and CO₂ plasma gas flow rate is investigated. A maximum concentration of H₂ of 49.09 vol% and CO of 35.87 vol% are obtained at the highest plasma power of 1.12 kW. However, the maximum syngas yield (84.11 %), LHV (19.22 MJ/m³) and cold gas efficiency (67.70 %) are found for the optimum conditions of plasma power of 0.75 kW. The residue with high ash content (13 %) and LHV of 1.28 MJ/kg is obtained after plasma gasification as a by-product. The metals in ash such as Si, Ni, Al, etc., if recovered has valuable applications in the preparation of catalysts, pigments, glass making, etc.