Plasma pyrolysis feasibility study of spent petrochemical catalyst wastes to hydrogen production
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ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Plasma pyrolysis feasibility study of spent petrochemical catalyst wastes to hydrogen production Hanieh Karimi1,3 · Mohammad Reza Khani1,3 · Mahtab Gharibi2 · Hamed Mahdikia1 · Babak Shokri1,3 Received: 10 January 2020 / Accepted: 25 July 2020 © Springer Japan KK, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Spent petrochemical catalysts are hazardous toxic wastes and dangerous to the environment and human health, due to heavy metals, coke, and other poisonous elements. Researchers over the years focus to utilize and handle the spent catalysts waste to produce other valuable products as an attractive option from environmental and economic points of view. This article generally discusses feasible methods to convert spent petrochemical waste catalysts to value-added products using a thermal plasma torch for the first time. The arc temperature which increases with power increase was measured by optical emission spectroscopy (OES). The result reveals that no spent catalyst waste remains after plasma pyrolysis process and conversion is completely feasible. Furthermore, the major product H2 for fuel cell was produced, that is environmentally and economically beneficial. Methane, ethane, ethylene, and isobutane were the main products. The best plasma effect on the spent petrochemical catalyst waste in terms of the maximum hydrogen production rate was obtained at 140 A, 30 V, and 3 cc feed injection which causes to produce 53.2% H2. Keywords Spent petrochemical catalyst waste · Plasma pyrolysis · Conversion · Thermal plasma treatment · H2 production
Introduction The human need for energy, environmental pollution, using expensive fossil fuels, and waste production continuously are increasing due to the ever-growing population. Waste production produces many problems such as occupying vast regions of land for disposable waste, non-biodegradability, and environmental hazards. These concerns motivate researchers to find new energy resources and seek effective ways of waste treatment processing [1–5]. Today solid wastes are managed by a combination of the landfill, composting, and thermal treatment. Solid wastes * Babak Shokri b‑[email protected] 1
Laser and Plasma Research Institute, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, 19839‑63113 Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
2
Petrochemical Research and Technology Company, National Petrochemical Company, No. 27, Sarv Alley, Shirazi‑c, P.O. Box 14358‑84711, Mollasadra, Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
3
Department of Physics, Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Evin, 19839‑63113 Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran
are classified into three categories: municipal solid waste (MSW), industrial solid waste (ISW), and hazardous waste (HW). The landfill is the dominant form for solids disposal. However, this non-eco-friendly method suffers from the problems of releasing toxins and occupying vast expanses of land. The drawbacks of this process are the slow degradation rate and the limitation to organics only. Hence, landfill and composting are neither sufficient nor
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