(48c) Catalytic Pyrolysis of Used Tyres for Clean Fuel

Catalytic pyrolysis of used tyres for clean fuel

Julius I. Osayi.  ¹, Sunny Iyuke¹, Diakanua N. Bavon¹, Jaco Van Der Walt² and Samuel E. Ogbeide³

¹Nanotechnology Research Group, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

• ojgrants@yahoo.com, Sunny.iyuke@wits.ac.za Diakanua.nkazi@wits.ac.za

²South Africa Nuclear Energy Corporation (NECSA), Pretoria, South Africa

Jaco.vanderwalt@necsa.co.za

³Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Benin, P.M.B 1154, Benin City, Nigeria

Samuelogbeide@gmail.com

One of the current challenges following the rapid demand for automotive product is the large quantities of used tyres that end up as non-biodegradable solid waste. This is a major environmental and economic problem [1-3]. Therefore in this paper, the catalytic pyrolysis of used-tyres in a fixed bed quartz tube reactor was performed. Zeolite served as the catalyst and the effect of the catalyst/tyre ratio on the yield and composition of the obtained pyrolytic oil (biocrude) was investigated. The biocrude, produced an at operating temperature of 600 ^oC and heating rate of 15 ^oC/Min was characterized by FT-IR, ¹H NMR and GC-MS followed by fractional distillation. The results of the boiling points showed that the liquid fractions are comparable to petroleum fuels and can serve as an alternative source of clean fuel [4-8] than the used tyre biocrude which has the set back of sulphur and tars.

Key words: Used tyres; Pyrolysis; Catalyst; Distillation and Fuels

Reference:

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        from biomass.  Biomass 4, 151-4