Utilization of laboratory glove waste for fuel production through pyrolysis-hydrocracking consecutive process catalyzed by sulfated Indonesian natural zeolite

Research on the hydrocracking of pyrolysis oil from laboratory glove waste over sulfated Indonesian natural zeolite catalysts as an intelligent effort to treat non-degradable waste has been successfully carried out. Natural zeolite (NZ) was treated with sulfuric acid at 1, 2, and 3 M concentrations, followed by calcination with 20 mL/min of N2 gas to produce SNZ 1, SNZ 2, and SNZ 3 catalysts, respectively. Sulfuric acid treatment of NZ can increase the crystallinity and surface area. Laboratory glove waste was pyrolyzed at 200–300 °C for 2 h to produce oil, which was used as hydrocracking feed. The hydrocracking process was conducted using feed pyrolysis oil at 250 °C with a catalyst-to-feed ratio of 1:100 (wt%) and an H2 gas flow rate of 20 mL/min for 1 h. SNZ catalysts can produce more liquid products than the NZ catalyst and increase the selectivity of the gasoline fraction. As the catalyst with the highest acidity, among other concentration variations, the SNZ 2 catalyst can have 89.41% liquid product and 88.54% gasoline fraction selectivity with good stability for three consecutive runs. Graphical abstract: (Figure presented.)