Method of Converting Municipal Proportional Waste Plastics into Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuel by Using Activated Carbon

Abstract

The demand for fossil fuel is at an all t ime h igh worldwide. Annually ~30 billion barrels of petroleu m is being consumed worldwide. In this busy society, transportation is vital and, for transportation, petroleum is an obligation. All the major forms of business, agricultural, exports and imports depend on transportation. Transportation requires petroleum to function. Vehicles in the road require fuels, airway transportation requires Aviation fuel and sea transportation requires fuel oil. Fo r not only transportation but also, petroleum is required to make all kind of daily usable plastics. Deplet ion of petroleum is inevitable at th is current rate of consumption. Emissions released fro m evaporation and co mbustion of these fuel contributes to too many environ mental and health problems; including emitting greenhouse gases that contribute immensely to global warming. Annually ~7 billion tons of carbon dioxide is released to the environment due to petroleum emission. Moreover, when the plastics are discarded into the landfill, it becomes waste plastic and since plastic is non-biodegradable, it can remain in the landfill fo r thousands of year. Waste plastics presence in the landfill causes environmental problems e.g., it can cause soil to decay. Alternative source of energy created fro m Solar, W ind, Hydrogen Fuel, Bio mass Fuel, Bio-Diesel, Green Diesel, Bio-ethanol, and Geo-thermal has been proposed as a solution to these problems. A developed process of thermally breaking down the hydrocarbon of chains of plastic has been studied and imp lemented to produce a liquid fuel in the presence of activated carbon. The activated carbon acts as a filter to absorb dye from the waste plastic during the thermal process to increase the quality of the final product. This fuel can be used for all kinds of transportation, and will emit much less emission compared to the current commercial fuel and it will be cost effective.