Report on plastic waste disposal through plasma pyrolysis technology
Plasma pyrolysis is one of the technologies which could be opted for disposal of plastic waste. In Plasma pyrolysis, high temperature is produced using plasma torch in oxygen starved environment to destroy plastic waste efficiently and in an ecofriendly manner. To find out its performance, CPCB sponsored a project titled "Plastic Waste Disposal using Plasma Pyrolysis Technology" to Facilitation Centre for Industrial Plasma Technology (FCIPT), Institute for Plasma Research, Gandhinagar (Gujarat). The experiment has been conducted using different categories of plastic waste such as thin carry bags, metalized and multi layer pouches etc. During the experiment, emission of pollutants i.e. particular matter (PM), Oxides of Nitrogen (NO 2), Carbon Monoxide (CO), Dioxins and Furans were also monitored. The analytical data indicates that the emission of toxic pollutants including dioxins and furans are lower than the prescribed standards for hazardous waste incinerators. Pyrolysis of plastic (polyethylene) provides 90% combustible gases. It would be appreciable to recover energy to make plasma pyrolysis economically viable.