Conversion of Waste Plastic to Lubricating Base Oil

Stephen J. Miller*
ChevronTexaco Energy Technology Company, 100 Chevron Way, Richmond, California 94802
Naresh Shah and Gerald P. Huffman
University of Kentucky, Consortium for Fossil Fuel Science and Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering, Lexington, Kentucky 40506-0043
Energy Fuels, 2005, 19 (4), pp 1580–1586
DOI: 10.1021/ef049696y
Publication Date (Web): May 28, 2005
Copyright © 2005 American Chemical Society
Fossil Fuels, Derivatives, and Related Products

Abstract

A new process has been developed for the conversion of waste plastic to lubricating base oil. It has also been demonstrated that waste plastic and Fischer−Tropsch (FT) wax can be co-processed to produce lube range molecules. The process uses a thermal, noncatalytic, atmospheric pressure pyrolysis process that converts high-molecular-weight molecules to lower-molecular-weight molecules in the lube oil range. Hydroisomerization is then used to convert this product to low-pour-point oils of unconventional base oil (UCBO) quality. The major byproduct is diesel, with little production of C4− gas. Initial experiments in bench-scale laboratory pyrolysis units were followed by tests in a 1 gal/day pilot plant. The feedstocks that were tested consisted of polyethylene (PE), 96% PE−4% poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET), FT wax, and a 50/50 mixture of PE and FT wax. The product distribution and lube quality showed surprisingly little variation for these feedstocks. The pyrolysis yields of 385 °C+ product were in the range of 37−57 wt %, whereas the potential lube yields were 60−70 wt %, assuming all the olefins (almost all 1-olefins) could be upgraded to lube by oligomerization. Hydroisomerization of the pyrolysis bottoms yielded oil with a viscosity of 3.4−5.4 cSt, pour points between −13 to −37 °C, and a viscosity index in the range of 150−160.

View: Full Text HTML | Hi-Res PDF | PDF w/ Links

Citing Articles

View all 8 citing articles

Citation data is made available by participants in CrossRef's Cited-by Linking service. For a more comprehensive list of citations to this article, users are encouraged to perform a search in SciFinder.

This article has been cited by 3 ACS Journal articles (3 most recent appear below).

Tools

SciFinder Links

SciFinder subscribers: Click to sign in | Not a SciFinder subscriber? Learn more at www.cas.org

Explore by:

History

  • Published In Issue July 20, 2005
  • Received November 23, 2004
    Revised Manuscript Received April 19, 2005

Recommend & Share

  • Share on ACS NetworkACS Network
  • Add to FacebookFacebook
  • Tweet ThisTweet This
  • Add to CiteULikeCiteULike
  • Add to NewsvineNewsvine
  • Digg ThisDigg This
  • Add to DeliciousDelicious

Related Content

Other ACS content by these authors: