INDUSTRIAL WASTE MANAGEMENT

THERMAL CRACKING OF THERMOSETTING PLASTIC FROM

WASTE ELECTRONIC EQUIPMENT

Authors: Shipra Gupta1, Abhishek Sharma2, Arth Limbachiya3

Email ID: shipragupta5397@gmail.com1, abhishek.sharma1704@gmail.com2,
arth.al1996@gmail.com3,
Abstract:

The plastic sheets from printed circuit boards of e-waste is a challenge to dispose due to its
non-recycling nature. The polymer present in sheets is thermosetting and it has no recycling.
This can cause serious damage to the environment due to hazardous composition contained in
WEEEs such as chloro fluoro carbon, poly carbonyl bromine, Pb, Hg, hallides etc. These
substances are carcinogenic in nature and should be scrubbed during burning or landfilling. In
the present work this non-recyclable plastic was pyrolysed to recover fuel oil. Experiments
have been performed with plastic containing like waste cables, monitor case and any other
plastic material left unattended. A tubular fixed bed reactor heated in a muffle furnace at 550
⁰C was used for the experiments. The arrangement of the reactor has been designed in such a
way, gases or vapors evolved during pyrolysis were condensed outside the reactor. Nitrogen is
purged during the pyrolysis. In between condenser and the reactor a scrubber filled with
calcium carbonate was used to scrub bromide from flue gases and then it was condensed though
a condenser with water at 5 ⁰C as coolant. Substantial amount of fuel oil has been obtained and
further analysis of the oil will be carried out.

Keywords: Thermal cracking, fuel oil, epoxy resin, thermosetting plastic.

References:

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2. Jonathan C. Acomb, Mohamad Anas Nahil, Paul T. Williams, Thermal processing of

plastics from waste electrical and electronic equipment for hydrogen production, Elsevier Ltd
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