Non-Conventional fuels from thermocatalytic pyrolysis of waste tube rubber using SiO2 as catalyst
2025
Riaz Muhammad | Felizitas Schlederer | Ali Riaz
Large quantities of used rubber material, mostly from vehicle scrap tires and tube rubbers, are discarded every year, causing environmental problems of great concern and representing a tough challenge for waste management bodies around the world. Various ways to remediate the issues have been proposed and applied from time to time. Pyrolysis offers a promising solution to convert waste tires into potential fuels and chemicals. Thermo-catalytic pyrolysis is a well-established process that aims for material, energy or chemical product recovery. The demand and need for the use of materials like scrap tubes and rubbers for producing useful products is a valuable consideration for this kind of waste that in turn may minimize the dependency on natural resources. Inner tube rubber, which is mainly made of isobutylene-isoprene, poses a hazard to the environment. However, there is also an opportunity to turn this waste product into a valuable energy source. In the current study optimization of parameters such as temperature, time and catalyst weight for catalytic pyrolysis of isobutylene-isoprene rubber into liquid fuel in the presence of Silicon Dioxide (SiO2) as catalyst is reported. A maximum rubber conversion into oils was obtained at optimized conditions of 350 °C temperature, 1.5 g of catalyst (SiO2) for an hour heating time. The obtained pyrolyzed products were subjected to several physical and chemical tests. Reported results confirm the presence of 30 % of aliphatic hydrocarbons, 25 % polar hydrocarbons and 40 % aromatic hydrocarbons. The distillation data indicates that oil obtained is a mixture of aromatic and olefinic hydrocarbons as that of diesel and may be used as an alternative fuel.
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