Recycling of plastic wastes into alternative fuels towards a circular economy in Ghana

Abstract

Traditional methods of disposing and storing plastic waste in Ghana, such as at damping sites and landfills, have put the environment and human life at risk for years. A sustainable and efficient solution is to shift to a circular economy by recycling plastic waste into alternative fuels. Therefore, this study focussed on the segregation of plastic waste and its conversion into fuel products via pyrolysis in the temperature range of 350 – 420 °C. In a kilogram-scale pyrolysis fixed-bed batch reactor, a large quantity of condensate oil was produced with minimal amounts of non-condensable gases, chars, and waxes. Gas chromatography, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and thermal gravimetric analysis were used to characterise the condensate oils. The measured fuel properties of the various condensate oil types were remarkedly similar to those of commercial fuels (gasoline, diesel, and kerosene). This makes them suitable alternatives to conventional energy sources, with the potential to significantly improve living conditions, reduce environmental pollution, and cut down on the need to import refined fossil fuel. Finally, the condensate oil from the individual plastic waste types outperformed the mixed-plastic waste in terms of fuel properties and yield.