The Catalyst Review January 2025 - 12

Experimental Abstracts
Process Optimization: A Promising New FCC Feedstock:
Heavy-cut Pyrolysis Oil from Post-Consumer Plastic Waste
Figure 1. A simplified flowsheet of the co-author's company's process.
Plastic circularity represents a critical approach
to reducing environmental impact
by transforming waste plastic molecules
into new plastic feedstocks. Two primary
recycling methods are gaining global attention:
mechanical and advanced chemical
recycling. Among these, thermal pyrolysis is
particularly prominent in advanced chemical
recycling, offering an effective method
to convert mixed plastic waste into valuable
fuels and fundamental petrochemical components.
Thermal pyrolysis produces a liquid that can be separated into different boiling point fractions. The heaviest
fraction is particularly suitable for fluid catalytic cracking (FCC), where it can be transformed into transportation fuels.
In industrial settings, waste plastic pyrolysis oil (WPPO) would represent only a small portion of the total input to an FCC
unit due to the limited commecial availability of waste plastic pyrolysis oil compared to traditional fossil crude oil. In an
effort to provide refiners with insights into the potential and challenges of using post-consumer plastic waste pyrolysis oil
as a feedstock, this study presents pilot plant results from co-processing vacuum gasoil (VGO) with 10% and 20% heavy
cut fractions of commercially produced pyrolysis oil derived from mixed post-consumer plastic waste (Figure 1).
Compared to the 100% VGO case, blends with WPPO cracked to higher conversion, producing more propylene, C4 olefins,
and gasoline. Light cycle oil (LCO) and bottoms decreased. Coke and dry gas were unchanged. The heat of cracking
of the pyrolysis oil was similar to that of VGO. The yield shifts observed when co processing the heavy-cut pyrolysis oil
derived from post-consumer plastic waste were consistent with expected changes based on the feed properties. Levels
of WPPO co-processed will depend on commercial availability and logistical considerations. Depending on the blend
level, the higher level of unconventional FCC feed contaminants
in WPPO might require considerations on catalyst management
strategy, reviews on optimum insertion points for WPPO in the
refinery, and/or use of improved metals tolerance of FCC catalyst
technologies (Table 1).
This work shows that heavy-cut pyrolysis oil derived from mixed
post-consumer plastic waste is a promising feedstock for FCC.
FCC processing of such waste plastics-derived feed streams
results in lower carbon intensity FCC products, valorizes the
hydrocarbon building blocks in plastic waste, redirects waste
plastics from landfills to a more circular approach, and
contributes to reducing the globally growing plastic waste
problem. Brandt S, Bryden K, Goellner J, et al. (2024) Hydrocarbon
Processing, http://admin.hydrocarbonprocessing.
com/magazine/2024/june-2024
Table 1. The incremental yields of the WPPO for the 10wt%
and 20wt% cases, along with yields for the 100% VGO case for
comparison.
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The Catalyst Review
January 2025

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The Catalyst Review January 2025

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