Thermal Degradation of Waste Acrylic Laboratory Ware to Fuel and Chemicals

Abstract

The present work includes the thermal degradation of waste acrylic plastics to value added products. Damaged chemistry laboratory burettes made of PMMA were thermally decomposed in a semi batch reactor in atmospheric pressure at temperature range of 350?550?C to convert it into useful liquid fuel and chemicals. The process could convert the waste completely into major liquid, gaseous products and very small amount of solid residue. The yield of the condensed product has been studied as a function of temperature and was found low (75.66wt.%) at 350?C, increased to a maximum of 95.3wt.% at 450?C and then gradually decreased with further increase in temperature.The composition of the oil fraction was characterized by Gas chromatography-Mass spectroscopy and is found consisting of different hydrocarbons and oxygenated organic compound carrying C7-C22 components. Fuel properties of the oil obtained by different standard methods are similar to petrochemical fuels. On the basis of the obtained results hypothetical continuous process of acrylic plastics waste processing for engine fuel production can be presented.