The global production of plastics has seen a sharp increase from around 1.3 million tonnes in 1950 to 245 MT in 2006.
In recent years, significant growth in the consumption of plastic globally has been due to the introduction of plastics into newer application areas such as automotive field, rail, transport, aerospace, medical and healthcare, electrical and electronics, telecommunication, building and infrastructure, and furniture.
This significant growth in the demand for plastic and its forecast for future have certainly proved that there has been a trend of plastic revolution taking place.Plastics are hydrocarbons that are usually made from petroleum, and they can be converted back to liquid fuel.
Researchers have typically used a process called pyrolysis to do this, which requires heating the plastics at a high temperature.
During the present scenario of Covid-19 pandemic specifically, Personal Protective Equipments (PPE) are being designed for single use followed by disposal.
Once these plastic materials are discharged into the environment they end up in landfills or oceans, as their natural degradation is difficult at ambient temperature. They are non biodegradable and need decades to decompose. Recycling of these waste polymers requires both physical methods and chemical methods.
Three Rs i.e. reduce, reuse and recycle are the three pillars of sustainable development that can help to prevent the disposal of plastic to the environment.
Mostly PPE contains polypropylene which can be converted into petrol by pyrolysis. This is a chemical process for breaking down plastic at high temperature — between 300-400 degrees Celsius for an hour — without oxygen. Cracking process breaks down the long polymeric chains into useful smaller molecular weight compounds. The products of this process are highly useful and can be utilized as fuels or chemicals in various applications. The challenges of PPE waste management and increasing energy demand could be addressed simultaneously by the production of liquid fuel from waste PPE kits.
(Dr Senapati is Dean Science, Biju Patnaik University of Technology & Professor of Chemistry, Trident Academy of Technology, Bhubaneswar)