Title : An experimental study of fuel production from waste motor oil and waste plastics
Abstract:
The production of waste plastics is very important in Côte d’Ivoire. The city of Abidjan alone produces 280 tons per day. Only 10 % of these wastes are collected to be recycled. The remaining wastes are abandoned in landfills and everywhere. These waste plastics are non-biodegradable so that they cause serious environmental problems for humans (when they enter in food chain after photo- degradation), animals, rivers, oceans and marine life. A solution of the conversion of those waste plastics is their thermal liquefaction after their melting followed by a condensing its vapour in fractional distillation towers. Some experiments have already been made in that way, for instance to get aviation fuel. In our case, some experiments were made to convert waste plastics into liquid hydrocarbon fuels. . In some other experiments that we made, waste motor oil was heated and its vapour was condensed to get liquid fuels. Both wastes contain hydrocarbon polymers. In both cases, waste motor oil is the energy source. We built a fractional distiller to get the liquid hydrocarbon fuels. This work reports the results obtained after the thermal degradation of waste motor oil, into three liquid fractions. The density of each fraction was measured, that indicated the nature of the hydrocarbons obtained. One of the fraction, which is diesel, was successfully used as energy source of a motorcycle and a diesel electric generator.
