High Grade Liquid Fuel from Plastic Waste Pyrolysis Oil by Column Distillation

One of the detrimental pollutants in the world is plastic waste. Many methods have been tried to handle it, for example pyrolysis. Pyrolysis can convert plastic waste into crude oil which can then be used as fuel after the purification process. Distillation can separate light components of high grade fuel from the heavy fraction. The aim of this research is to purify pyrolysis oil from polyethylene plastic waste using lab scale batch column distillation with glass ball packing. Distillation is conducted by varying the boiler heater voltage at 140 volt, 180 volt, and 220 volt that will lead to different boiling point of 120-190, 193-229, and 231-264°C, respectively. The oil obtained from distillation at heat A produced the most distillate of 42 ml compare with distillate oil at heat B (41.5 ml) and heat C (36 ml). The distillate at heat C has comparable properties to commercial fuel (gasoline) in terms of hydrocarbon composition (C<inf>5</inf>-C<inf>12</inf>), density of 0.7660 gr/ml, specific gravity of 0.7663, kinematic viscosity of 0.798 mm²/s, and heating value of 45.901 Mj/kg.