By Alvina Faraditya
11504011
BACHELOR’S DEGREE in
CHEMICAL ENGINEERING STUDY PROGRAM
SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT CONCENTRATION FACULTY OF LIFE SCIENCES AND TECHNOLOGY
SWISS GERMAN UNIVERSITY The Prominence Tower
Jalan Jalur Sutera Barat No. 15, Alam Sutera Tangerang, Banten 15143 - Indonesia
July 2019
Revision After Thesis Defense on 18th July, 2019
Alvina Faraditya STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR
I hereby declare that this submission is my own work and to the best of my knowledge, it contains no material previously published or written by another person, nor material which to a substantial extent has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma at any educational institution, except where due acknowledgement is made in the thesis.
Alvina Faraditya
_____________________________________________
Student Date
Approved by:
Dr.-Ing. Diah Indriani Widiputri S.T., M.Sc
_____________________________________________
Thesis Advisor Date
Dr.-Ing. Evita Herawati Legowo
_____________________________________________
Thesis Co-Advisor
Date
Dr. Dipl-Ing. Samuel Kusumocahyo
_____________________________________________
Dean Date
Alvina Faraditya PYROLYSIS OIL PRODUCTION FROM
MUNICIPAL POLYETHYLENE (PE) PLASTIC WASTE
By Alvina Faraditya
Dr.-Ing. Diah Indriani Widiputri S.T., M.Sc, Advisor Dr.-Ing. Evita Herawati Legowo, Co-Advisor
SWISS GERMAN UNIVERSITY
The world is full of plastics. However, plastics are not biodegradable and are rather difficult to be decomposed in the environment. The buildup of huge amount of plastic waste in landfills have become a global concern, hence, a solution needs to be found.
One possible solution is by recycling with thermal decomposition, namely pyrolysis.
Pyrolysis is a thermal process that converts plastic back into petroleum. To assist the pyrolysis process, several catalysts were used in this research as well, these catalysts are the active carbon and activated bentonite clay. Bentonite clay was activated by thermal activation at 500oC for two hours in a furnace. Catalysts affected the product generated as well as the properties of the product, with activated bentonite clay being the more effective catalyst rather than active carbon. Nevertheless, the product generated are still in the crude condition. However, the addition of activated bentonite clay successfully increased the product yield and removed the contaminant in the product, although the product appeared to be more waxy and solid in room temperature.
The contaminants present in the pyrolysis product are the aromatic hydrocarbons and vinyl olefins, however, clay could remove the aromatic hydrocarbons but not the vinyl olefins. Hence, a further refining process needed to be done for further research.
Keywords: Pyrolysis, Polyethylene, Active carbon, Activated bentonite, Yield, Melting point, FTIR.
Alvina Faraditya
© Copyright 2019 by Alvina Faraditya
All rights reserved
Alvina Faraditya DEDICATION
I dedicate this thesis work for the future of the country I love: Indonesia
Alvina Faraditya ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First of all, I would like to express my greatest thankfulness to Almighty God Allah SWT because of His love and strength that He has given to me during this whole thesis journey.
This thesis is important to complete the Sustainable Energy and Environment study program in Swiss German University. I am very aware that there are still many inadequacies in arranging this thesis and now I would like to thank to those who have supported me during the experiments up to carrying out this thesis book.
Here I want to give my special thanks to;
1. Dr.-Ing. Diah Indriani Widiputri S.T., M.Sc, as my advisor, for her excellence in supervision and devotion to educate and guide me throughout my thesis project.
2. Dr.-Ing. Evita Herawati Legowo, as my co-advisor, for her continuous guidance, assistance and knowledge during my thesis project.
3. Ibu Endriastuti S.Si, Pak Wahyu and the rest of the team of PT Petrolab Services for their patience and assistance in product analysis and laboratory analysis.
4. My dear parents and brother, for their support, love, and advice for me to be more hardworking and better person while staying humble.
5. My dear friends, for sharing their journey and experiences during finishing this thesis project. I am grateful because I have friends that help and support me throughout the course of completing this whole thesis journey.
I recognize this is as one of the greatest journeys I have ever had. I will strive to use my relevant skills, experience, and knowledge in the future.
Alvina Faraditya TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
STATEMENT BY THE AUTHOR ... 2
ABSTRACT ... 3
DEDICATION ... 5
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 6
TABLE OF CONTENTS ... 7
LIST OF FIGURES ... 9
LIST OF TABLES ... 11
CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION ... 12
Background ... 12
Research Objectives ... 13
Significance of Study ... 13
Research Questions ... 13
Hypothesis ... 14
CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW ... 15
Plastic ... 15
2.1.1. Formation of Plastic ... 19
2.1.2. Thermal Properties of Plastic ... 19
2.1.3. Plastic Pollution ... 20
2.1.4. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE) ... 24
2.1.5. Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) ... 25
2.2 Plastic Waste Treatments ... 26
2.2.1 Torrefaction ... 27
2.2.2 Pyrolysis ... 27
2.2.3 Gasification ... 29
2.3 Catalyst for Pyrolysis ... 30
2.3.1 Bentonite Clay ... 30
2.3.2 Active Carbon ... 32
2.4 Previous Studies of Plastic Pyrolysis ... 34
Alvina Faraditya
2.4.2 HDPE and LDPE Pyrolysis (Dharma and Irawan, 2015) ... 34
2.4.3 PP Pyrolysis (Sanjaya, 2018) ... 35
CHAPTER 3 – RESEARCH METHODS ... 36
3.1 Venue and Time... 36
3.2 Materials and Equipment ... 36
3.2.1 Materials ... 36
3.2.2 Equipment ... 37
3.3 Experimental Design and Procedure ... 39
3.3.1 Sample Preparation ... 39
3.3.2 Catalyst Preparation ... 40
3.3.3 Experiment Procedure ... 42
3.4 Test Setup ... 43
3.5 Analytical Procedure ... 43
3.5.1 Yield ... 43
3.5.2 Melting Point ... 44
3.5.3 FTIR Spectroscopy ... 44
3.5.4 Color ... 44
CHAPTER 4 – RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS ... 45
4.1 Pyrolysis ... 45
4.1.1 LDPE ... 49
4.1.2 HDPE ... 50
4.2 Pyrolysis with Catalyst ... 50
4.2.1 LDPE ... 51
4.2.2 HDPE ... 53
4.3 Yield ... 55
4.4 Melting Point ... 57
4.5 FTIR Spectroscopy ... 59
4.5.1 LDPE ... 59
4.5.2 HDPE ... 64
CHAPTER 5 – CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ... 68
5.1 Conclusions ... 68
5.2 Recommendations ... 68
REFERENCES ... 69
APPENDICES ... 72
CURRICULUM VITAE ... 81