2023 3rd Asian Conference on Innovation in Technology (ASIANCON)

Pune, India. Aug 25-27, 2023

Plastic Waste to Fuel - An Affordable Approach

Towards Sustainability
Sonu S Karanavar Akshith S Sreevidya Jayachandran Anagha Pavithran
Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,
Amritapuri, India Amritapuri, India Amritapuri, India Amritapuri, India
sonuskaranavar@gmail.com akshithsnjv90@gmail.com sreevidya.jay@gmail.com anaghapavithran@gmail.com
2023 3rd Asian Conference on Innovation in Technology (ASIANCON) | 979-8-3503-0228-8/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE | DOI: 10.1109/ASIANCON58793.2023.10270123

Anoop S Aiswarya Suresh Bharath K R

Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and Department of Electrical and
Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering Electronics Engineering
Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham,
Amritapuri, India Amritapuri, India Amritapuri, India
anoopsp@am.amrita.edu aiswaryasuresh@am.amrita.edu bharathranjan@gmail.com

Abstract—It is widely known that plastic plays a vital role polymer chain is made up of thousands of repeating units.
in our daily lives. Plastic’s adaptability leads to the overuse Earlier, plastic production was minimal and in manageable
of single-use plastic products, which has severe environmental proportions, but now it is immense, resulting in an increase in
consequences. The problem arises in the disposal of this massive
amount of plastic. There are just a few methods of safe disposal plastic waste. In the 1920s, large scale manufacture of plastic
of plastic waste without harming the environment. The burning started with the production of Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). By
of plastic simply leads to toxins spreading in the air. Plastic the next twenty five years, all the major plastic types, such
waste conversion into fuel is an ideal approach in these times as Polyethylene (PE), Polypropylene (PP), Polystyrene(PS),
of increased fuel demand. Highly complex and costly methods and Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) came into use and were
such as Pyrolysis for converting plastic litter into a valuable
product are, therefore in high demand. This paper presents a being manufactured in huge quantities [1]. Category and
proposed methodology which is cheaper, indigenous and simple examples of types of plastics are summarised in Table 1.
to suit a rural community in India. It includes an intelligent
plastic waste collection system and plastic to fuel conversion
system powered by renewable sources. The proposed method
is well aligned with United Nations Sustainability Development TABLE I
Goals (UNSDG) such as Sustainability Cities and Communities C ATEGORY AND E XAMPLES OF T YPES OF P LASTICS [2] [3]
Target (SDG - 11) by minimizing the quantity of plastic litter that
pollutes the environment and the Affordable and Clean Energy Type of Boiling Melting
Examples
Aim (SDG - 7). Plastic Point (0 C) Point (0 C)
Index Terms—Plastic to fuel, Pyrolysis, Inverter, Induction coil, Bottles,clothes made
PET 350 250
H-bridge, Micro-controller of polyester
Milk cartons, Detergent
I. I NTRODUCTION HDPE 125 130 bottles, Cereal box,
Food Containers
Plastics are a form of synthetic component that comprise Credit cards, Plumbing
polymers as a foundational element. The versatility, along pipes, Wire and Cable,
PVC 430 260
IV fluid bags, Medical
with a variety of other features such as lightweight, long tubing, Oxygen masks
life, flexibility, and low cost of the product, has led to its Plastic/cling wrap, Bread
widespread globally. Most of the plastics are manufactured LDPE 300 110 bags, Garbage bags
bags, Grocery bags
from substances derived from fossil fuels like natural gas or Straws, Prescription
gasoline. Organic polymers are included in most plastics. Most PP 160 173 bottles, Hot food containers,
of these polymers consist of chains of carbon chips, with Laboratory devices
Cups, Fast food containers,
or without the addition of oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur. These PS 430 240 Shipping packaging,
chains are made up of several repeating monomeric units. Each Building insulation
Sports bottles, Eyeglasses
Others Electronics, CD/DVDs,
Medical Containers

979-8-3503-0228-8/23/$31.00 ©2023 IEEE 1

Authorized licensed use limited to: Bibliothèque ÉTS. Downloaded on February 29,2024 at 02:44:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
 It has been noted that global oil consumption has con-
sistently increased during the last two decades. Worldwide
oil consumption reached 98.27 million barrels per day in
2019, an increase of 20 million barrels per day since 1998
[4]. According to the Petroleum Planning and Analysis Cell
(PPAC), India’s gasoline consumption increased 3.1% year on
year in December to 19.60 million tonnes. The growth in fuel
demand may be a concern because there may be a scarcity in
the future; thus, alternatives should be examined. Renewable
fuels that are economically available, like substitutes made
from oil made from waste plastic, can take the place of fossil
fuels, especially diesel engines. [5].
It is evident from the facts above that these various types of
plastics are being turned into plastic litter without a method
of disposal [6]. Most plastic waste is divided into categories
that can be recycled versus those that cannot, with recyclable
plastic being recycled and non-recyclable plastic being burned.
Due to the fact that not all plastics can be recycled, these
approaches are not very effective [7]. These plastic wastes can
be transformed into fuel, which can be used to meet the current
fuel demand, as fossil fuels are steadily becoming more and
more scarce.
II. L ITERATURE R EVIEW
Pyrolysis is the process of decomposing materials using
thermal energy. Plastic can be processed using Pyrolysis in
a chamber to produce a gas which is condensed to produce
an inflammable liquid which can be further filtered and used
as fuel [8]. For the purpose of extracting plastic oil fuel, it
is suggested that LDPE, HDPE, PET, PS, and PP be used
as waste plastics because these plastics yield a high quality
and quantity of liquid oil [4]. It was reported that when
the Pyrolysis process was done on LDPE plastic at high
temperatures, a conversion of 98.16% and was obtained. In
the presence of CaCO3 as a catalyst, a conversion of 99.25%
and 86% of oil yield was obtained [9]. The alternative liquid
fuels produced from different plastics such as PE, PP, PS, and
different binary and tertiary plastic mixtures by the process
of Pyrolysis differ in physical and chemical properties [10].
The compatibility of these alternative fuels with present day
engines is something that should be assessed. When used
in light-duty engines, current research indicates that waste
product oils can compete with fossil fuels in terms of ignition,
discharge characteristics and engine capacity [5]. Observations
on Pyrolysis process conducted on six different plastics are
summarised in Table 2.
Through the characterization and assessment of two alter-
native fuels produced from plastic waste using the advanced
distillation curve method, it was concluded that even though
there are huge differences in the compositions of these fuels,
these can make up for the original fuels [12]. Certain plastics,
such as refuse plastic fuel, take more time for the Pyrolysis
process due to their, large size so using a kinetic model, the
effects of a surface chemical reaction and gas diffusion on
rate limiting steps can be examined [13]. The performance
of gasoline and diesel oil as a fuel is measured using octane
2
Authorized licensed use limited to: Bibliothèque ÉTS. Downloaded on February 29,2024 at 02:44:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
TABLE II
E XPERIMENTS C ONDUCTED ON D IFFERENT P LASTICS [11]
Type of Temperature
Observations
plastic (0 C)
Acidic character unfavorable to use in IC
PET 500
engines, used in fixed-bed reactor
A dark brownish oil, Semi batch reactor.
HDPE 550
Higher liquid oil yield
PVC 220-520 58.2 wt% of HCl was also obtained
550 Used batch reactor
LDPE
425 Used pressurized batch reactor
300
PP 380 Higher liquid oil yield
500
425
PS 600
Used pressurized autoclave reactor, used
fluidized bed reactor, Used batch reactor
581
and cetane. Consider the chemical composition, structure, and
thermal decomposition of the polymer in order to learn more
about Pyrolysis oil’s composition. Domestic cooking and heat-
ing methods employ a lot of induction heating applications.
Induction heating applications include converter topologies,
Modulation and control techniques, and this method is the
most effective for the above applications [14]. A microwave
oven powered by solar energy can also be used to heat
plastics such as Polyethylene in a Pyrolysis chamber at high
temperatures and subatomic pressure [15].
In this paper, the authors present a methodology that in-
volves the development of a mobile application that provides
the facility of collecting plastic waste from different house-
holds and industries in a rural community. These plastic wastes
will be converted to an inflammable gaseous form by the
method of a cost effective and simple process equivalent to
the Pyrolysis. The container is selected based on the thermal
capacity and availability in the community. The thermal energy
will be provided using electromagnetic induction. The pro-
duced inflammable gas is then converted into an inflammable
liquid fuel by the process of condensation.
The major contributions reported in this paper are the design
and development of an indigenous, low cost pyrolysis process
setup, design, development, and testing of the control circuit
for heating, and the successful generation of liquid fuel from
the proposed methodology. The rest of the paper includes;
Section II presents the discussion of the proposed methodology
presented. Section III has the observations and results obtained
from the experiments conducted in the current study, and the
paper is concluded with the major conclusions and future
perspectives in Section IV.
III. P ROPOSED P LASTIC TO F UEL C ONVERSION
M ETHODOLOGY
The proposed methodology can be divided into four stages,
as shown in Fig. 1. Detailed discussion of each of these stages
is as follows:
Stage 1 - Renewable energy source integration
Stage 1 provides the required power for the entire process.
As the objective is to provide sustainable green fuel, the
Fig. 1. Block diagram representation of the proposed plastic to fuel conversion
system.

energy source powering the process should also be a minimum

carbon footprint source. Solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, and
other renewable energy sources exist, but just a few have
sufficient potential. One such platform with immense potential
and worldwide accessibility is solar energy. One such platform
with immense potential and worldwide accessibility is solar
energy [16]. In this paper, the authors propose a solar powered
process. To meet the demand for energy, solar energy can be
utilized [17]. The state of the art renewable energy smart grid
available at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham can be used for the
Fig. 3. Control algorithm for the temperature control.
process. The scheduling of the process can be done based on
full scale prototype testing by considering the solar energy
penetration rate, daylight availability, energy storage system • Coil rating: 2000W
and amount of plastic waste. • Coil voltage: 230V
Stage 2 - Switching and controlling The temperature of the heating chamber can be controlled
by varying the voltage in the circuit by properly controlling
Stage 2 of the process includes the thermal energy source
the H-bridge switches. The atmega16 microcontroller is used
and the temperature controlling mechanism. Electromagnetic
as the controller. Phase and frequency correct PWM method
induction based heating is proposed for the current process.
is utilised for the operation. The duty cycle was controlled by
Direct induction heating is a result of electromagnetic activity
adjusting the potentiometer connected to the microcontroller’s
in which an induced current travels through the body to be
ADC input pin. The pulses generated by the pulse generator
heated, producing heat via inductance. The body is heated by
are conveyed to the H-bridge inverter, which is used to control
the eddy current created by the alternating magnetic fields
the voltage in the circuit. The flow chart shown in Fig. 3
produced by the coil that surrounds the substance in the
describes the developed control algorithm.
indirect induction heating method. The coil designed for the
The circuit for heating the coil was verified by boiling water
test phase is as shown in Fig. 2.
on the induction coil.
The details of the coil are as follows:
• Sample: Water (200ml)
• Circuit Voltage : 100V
• Circuit Current : 2.82A

Stage 3 - Smart waste management platform

Fig. 2. Electromagnetic induction coil designed for the experimental analysis.
In order to prevent the accumulation of garbage in society,
Stage 3 intends to launch a mobile application for gathering
plastic litter from households, industries and other organisa-
tions. The collected plastic is then segregated into its different
types mentioned in Table 1.
Stage 4- Indigenous plastic to fuel conversion
Stage 4 discusses plastic waste to fuel conversion. The
Pyrolysis process was done following the below parameters:

3
Authorized licensed use limited to: Bibliothèque ÉTS. Downloaded on February 29,2024 at 02:44:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.

Fig. 4. Plastic waste sample used for the experiment.
• Mode – Induction Cooktop of 1800 Watts
• Container – Air tight container (1 litre)
• Sample – LDPE and HDPE Plastic (700g)
• Power – 1800 Watts
• Temperature - 500°C
The separated plastic waste mentioned in Stage 3 is then
shredded into smaller pieces, shown in Fig. 4. With the aid of
the induction coil mentioned in Stage 2, the segregated plastic
waste filled in the vessel is heated in the absence of oxygen.
The safety valve of the pressure cooker is attached to a short
section of a copper tube that is attached to a plastic tube (a
direct connection to the plastic tube would melt the tube due to
the heat). In order for the condensation process to take place,
the plastic tube is then attached to a vessel that is surrounded
by ice.
IV. P RIMARY T EST R ESULT
This section comprises of the experimental test results of
Stage 2 and Stage 4 of the proposed plastic to fuel conversion
methodology.
Fig. 5. PWM results of the control circuit.
4
Authorized licensed use limited to: Bibliothèque ÉTS. Downloaded on February 29,2024 at 02:44:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
120
100
Temperature (0C)
80
60
40
20
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Time (s)
Fig. 6. Experiment result - Temperature of the heating chamber vs time.
Stage 2 - Switching and controlling
This section presents the results obtained from the hardware
setup used for implementing the control algorithm. Atmega16
micro-controller was selected as the controller so that the
future integration of the mobile application with the process
will be easier. A DC power supply is used to deliver a voltage
of 12 V that is stepped down to 5 V to the micro-controller
to function. The phase and frequency correct PWM signals
generated by the controller were used to control the switching
of the H-bridge setup. The PWM signals are shown in Fig. 5.
First pulse was used to switch one pair of H-bridge switches,
and the second pulse switches the other pair.
The programmed microcontroller is then linked to a pulse
generator, which is linked to a H-bridge inverter. The AC
input of the H-bridge inverter is linked to an autotransformer,
while the ac output is connected to the coil. Water was taken
Fig. 7. Schematic representation of the experiment conducted to verify Stage
2.

Fig. 8. Schematic representation of the experiment conducted to verify Stage
4.
in the chamber for the test of this stage as it was easier to
measure the temperature variation. The water sample reached
its boiling point after 7 minutes, and water started boiling. The
temperature of the chamber vs time was plotted as shown in
Fig. 6.
Stage 4- Indigenous plastic to fuel conversion
This section presents the experimental results of Stage 4.
At a power rating of 1800 Watts, a mixture of HDPE and
LDPE plastic weighing up to 700g was heated. Vapours were
visible in the plastic tube’s interior after one hour, and a
temperature of 500°C was noted. Following that, the vapours
were condensed into a yellowish liquid that is proven to be
inflammable. Plastic waste to fuel conversion is shown in Fig.
8.
V. C ONCLUSION AND F UTURE S COPE
A low cost, Indigenous and simple methodology was pro-
posed for the conversion of waste plastic to liquid fuel.
The presented method can serve as a viable solution for the
energy scarcity and increased effect of plastic waste on the
environment. The entire process involved in the proposed
methodology was divided into four stages; Stage 1 - Re-
newable energy source integration, Stage 2 - Switching and
controlling, Stage 3 - Smart waste management platform and
Stage 4- Indigenous plastic to fuel conversion. In this paper,
the experimental test results from the Stage 2 and Stage 4
were presented. The ability to control the temperature of the
chamber was tested using the proposed control algorithm. The
fuel conversion stage (Stage 4) was tested experimentally with
controlled test conditions. The fuel conversion stage was tested
experimentally with controlled test conditions and the waste
plastic was successfully converted into an inflammable liquid
form. The obtained liquid can be used as an ignitable fuel
for cooking or the burning of firewood in locations with a
limited supply of cooking gas and electricity. The proposed
methodology will help the community to move towards the
United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDG)
such as Sustainability Cities and Communities Target (SDG
- 11) and Affordable and Clean Energy (SDG - 7) at a faster
pace.
As a future work, the renewable energy source available at
the Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham has to be integrated to power
5
Authorized licensed use limited to: Bibliothèque ÉTS. Downloaded on February 29,2024 at 02:44:12 UTC from IEEE Xplore. Restrictions apply.
the conversion process. The process can be made more effec-
tive by developing a mobile application for waste management
and reward based waste collection systems. Finally, the four
stages will be integrated to develop a working prototype. The
liquid fuel obtained from the process need to be tested for
its efficiency as a fuel as well as to identify the presence of
poisonous constituents in the liquid. Based on the test results,
further processing stages for the liquid need to be investigated.
R EFERENCES
[1] S. Ramesh, “A practical solution to plastic waste problem (next major
energy source),” in OCEANS 2018 MTS/IEEE Charleston, pp. 1–5, 2018.
[2] H. T. Mohan, R. Mohan, F. Whitaker, D. Gaskell, and G. Gindt,
“Design and development of ldpe plastic bricks through triangulation
methodology,” IOT with Smart Systems, 2022.
[3] Y. Alsunni and C. Musgrave, “Effect of applied potential on
the surface energy, wulff shape and charge distribution of metal
surfaces,” Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4194491 or
http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4194491., 2022.
[4] A. Saini, A. Dixit, and R. Lavate, “Alteration of plastic waste into
thermal fuel by pyrolysis -a review,” International Journal of Research
in Engineering and Technology, vol. 8, pp. 1535–1544, 2022.
[5] R. K. Mohan, J. Sarojini, U. Rajak, T. N. Verma, and U. Agbulut,
“Alternative fuel production from waste plastics and their usability
in light duty diesel engine: Combustion, energy, and environmental
analysis,” Energy, vol. 265, 2023.
[6] S. Rajamohan, J. J. Marshal, and S. Suresh, “Derivation of synthetic
fuel from waste plastic: investigation of engine operating characteristics
on di diesel engine,” Environmental Science and Pollution Research,
vol. 28, no. 10, p. 11976 – 11987, 2021.
[7] M. Sagariga, S. Balaram, P. Menon, B. Aiswarya, D. Pramod, and
K. Bharath, “Plastic to fuel conversion system using renewable energy
assisted pyrolysis,” in 2020 6th International Conference on Advanced
Computing and Communication Systems (ICACCS), pp. 523–527, 2020.
[8] K. Bharath and S. Balaram, “Renewable energy assisted high temper-
ature heating system for plastic to fuel conversion unit,” International
Journal of Renewable Energy Research, vol. 10, no. 4, p. 1802 – 1809,
2020.
[9] M. Paucar-Sánchez, M. Martı́n-Lara, M. Calero, G. Blázquez, R. Solı́s,
and M. Muñoz-Batista, “Towards fuels production by a catalytic pyrol-
ysis of a real mixture of post-consumer plastic waste,” Fuel, vol. 352,
2023.
[10] I. Mohan, A. K. Panda, S. Mandal, and S. Kumar, “Co-pyrolysis of
azadirachta indica non-edible seed and waste ldpe: Analysis of kinetic
models using thermogravimetric analyser and prediction modeling with
artificial neural network (ann),” Fuel, vol. 350, 2023. Cited by: 0.
[11] A. Vijayakumar and J. Sebastian, “Pyrolysis process to produce fuel
from different types of plastic – a review,” IOP Conference Series:
Materials Science and Engineering, vol. 396, p. 012062, 08 2018.
[12] M. Harries, B. Kunwar, B. Sharma, and T. Bruno, “Application of
the advanced distillation curve method to characterize two alternative
transportation fuels prepared from the pyrolysis of waste plastic,” Energy
& Fuels, vol. 30, 09 2016.
[13] B. Dou, S. Lim, P. Kang, J. Hwang, S. Song, T.-U. Yu, and K.-D. Yoon,
“Kinetic study in modeling pyrolysis of refuse plastic fuel,” Energy and
Fuels, vol. 21, no. 3, p. 1442 – 1447, 2007. Cited by: 30.
[14] P. Vishnuram, G. Ramachandiran, T. Sudhakar Babu, and B. Nastasi,
“Induction heating in domestic cooking and industrial melting appli-
cations: A systematic review on modelling, converter topologies and
control schemes,” Energies, vol. 14, no. 20, 2021.
[15] D. Ghosh, S. K. Bandyopadhyay, and G. S. Taki, “Green energy
harvesting from waste plastic materials by solar driven microwave py-
rolysis,” in 2020 4th International Conference on Electronics, Materials
Engineering & Nano-Technology (IEMENTech), pp. 1–4, 2020.
[16] A. Rajendran, N. R. Nair, and P. Kanakasabapathy, “Inverter control
strategies in solar pv systems with adaptive dc link technology - a
review,” p. 278 – 282, 2018. Cited by: 5.
[17] D. K. Dileep and K. Bharath, “A brief study of solar home inverters,” in
2018 International Conference on Control, Power, Communication and
Computing Technologies (ICCPCCT), pp. 334–339, 2018.