Synthesis of Bio-Oil via Catalytic Co-Pyrolysis of Cotton Fabric Waste and Polypropylene Plastic Waste

Abstract

The growing energy demand and rising environmental concerns pose severe difficulties for future generations in maintaining energy sustainability. Therefore, it is critical to explore alternative green energy sources. Hence, this study synthesized renewable bio-oil by utilizing biomass of cotton fabric waste (CFW) and polypropylene plastic waste (PPW) as feedstocks. Titanium and alumina extracted from industrial solid waste (Ti-EA) were selected as catalysts due to their active sites promoting co-pyrolysis reaction towards bio-oil formation. The Ti-EA catalyst was prepared via the wet impregnation method at different calcination times. The bio-oil was synthesized via co-pyrolysis of CFW and PPW in a fixed bed reactor at the reaction temperature of 600 °C for 1 h. The effects of the catalyst calcination time were evaluated based on the bio-oil yield and product distribution. Moreover, the catalysts were characterized by BET and FTIR. The findings show that the Ti-EA catalyst calcined at 4 h (Ti-EA-4) obtained the highest bio-oil yield of 68% whereas calcination at 6 h (Ti-EA-6) gave the lowest yield of 28%. The BET shows that the Ti-EA-4 catalyst has a higher surface area of 121.6 m2/g than the Ti-EA-6 catalyst of 96.74 m2/g. This indicates that surface area is an important characteristic that promotes efficient catalytic activity for bio-oil production. Meanwhile, FTIR results show that the catalysts have similar surface functional groups mainly O-H stretching vibrations. Overall, Ti-EA catalyst calcined at 4 h has exhibited good performance in producing bio-oil via co-pyrolysis of CFW and PPW. Thus, Ti-EA catalyst has the potential to produce bio-oil as fuel, which contributes towards waste to energy conversion and environmental preservation.