THE TRAIL-BLAZING

PHENOMENON
OUTLINE:
INTRODUCTION:
Maritime Transport - the ‘Backbone of global trade’ plays a
vital role in trading economy
Fuel – The Life-giving blood of the Transportation Industry
Efficiency of the fuel engine cannot be matched with any other
Our paper suggests a different method of extracting fuel that too
from easily available plastics
IMO’s AMENDMENTS:
IMO has taken some serious environmental actions to control the
pollution caused by ships.
By Jan 1st 2020, the marine environment is under the restriction
for the emission of Sulphur content i.e. less than 0.5% globally
This prevents the marine life from being spoiled and also
improves the marine environment
By taking this into consideration, this eco-friendly renewable
fuel is discussed here
IRREPLACEABLE POLYMERS:
Plastics have become an Indispensable part in today’s world due
to their efficiency
Approximately 300 million tons of Plastics are produced around
the world, out of which 50% are of single use
Around 8 million tons of plastic wastes are dumped into the
oceans that causes serious hazards to marine growth
Some plastics ends up getting buried as wastes in landfills is a
major threat to humans since they create greenhouse gas that
heats the world
Since plastics has become an Integral part of life, it is indeed
difficult to eradicate plastics completely
COMPOSITION OF PLASTICS:
Plastics are typically Organic polymers of higher molecular mass
They are composed of various elements such as hydrogen,
carbon, Oxygen, nitrogen and Sulphur
The plastics such as polyethylene, poly tetrafluro ethylene, poly
methyl methacrylate, polyacrylonitrile and polystyrene can be
used as raw materials for extraction of fuel
DE-POLYMERIZATION:
The Polymers mentioned above due to the absence of cross-
linking, can be broken down into monomers by Increase in
entropy
This method of breaking down of polymers into monomers is
called as De-Polymerization
The monomer obtained from de-polymerization can be used in
extracting fuel
Different types of plastics can be polymerized in different
methods such as photo degradation, mechanical degradation and
chain end degradation.
PYROLYSIS:
After breaking down of polymers into monomers, these
monomers undergo a process called ‘Pyrolysis’ to attain its fuel
state
The word ‘Pyro’ means Fire and ‘Lysis’ means Separation
It is a catalytic cracking process in which waste plastics are
cracked at very high temperature and the resulting gases are
condensed to liquid fuel
EXTRACTION PROCESS:
The process of obtaining fuel from plastic is similar to that of
making alcohol
The process involves the collection of required plastics and they
are grinded into small pieces and in turn are heated in non-
oxygenated environment at their ceiling temperature
In non-oxygenated atmosphere, the plastics will melt, instead of
burning
After continuous heating of plastics at constant temperatures, the
melted plastic starts to boil and evaporate
Those vapors are passed through the cooling tube, where
the vapors are condensed into a liquid known as “Pyrolysis
oil”, which is collected and stored.
TYPES OF PLASTICS:
There is difference in plastics that we use:
If Polyethylene is used, liquid fuel is obtained that will solidify
as it cools into paraffin which is still good for diesel engines as
log as heated fuel tank is used
If Polypropylene is used, only liquid fuel is obtained without
paraffin. We just have to filter the fuel out of solids and the fuel is
ready to use in our gas tank
According to an analysis these type of liquid fuel has almost the
perfect diesel fraction which contains no acids or alkaline in it,
like fuel from tire does
BENEFITS OF PLASTIC FUEL:
Recycles the energy of waste plastic into usable fuel
Offers renewable energy source
Eliminates hazards of land pollution by waste plastics
The end products can be used for various purposes
The efficiency of plastic fuel is same that of the diesel fuel
The plastic fuel is much more cost efficient than the diesel fuel
INFERENCE:
We cannot abruptly reduce the usage of plastics, as it has become
a part of day-to-day life
But then, the adverse effects of plastics upon the marine
environment and the earth could be controlled to a greater extent,
if this of extracting fuel from plastics are executed
Therefore this paper suggests a method for recycling and reusing
the plastics for the benefits of future generation and for our
“MOTHER EARTH”
THANK YOU