Project EGERIA NIFAIA
Background
Kuwait ranks as one of the highest in energy consumption per capita in the world as declared by the EIA. Considering that the state of Kuwait suffers from the accumulation of plastic solid waste (PSW) in open landfill sites where it is typically scavenged or landfilled in an unsanitary manner, pyrolysis can provide an optimal and a well-engineered solution to overcome this problem. Pyrolysis is considered as an advanced recycling technique of PSW, since it can treat relatively contaminated and untreated feedstock materials in comparison to gasification or hydrogenation.
Pyrolysis of organic materials has been widely applied to valorise solid waste (SW) in the past. Starting from a simple technique of characterizing materials in micro-scale setups, pyrolysis is industrially applied nowadays to recover hefty proportions of products simulating petroleum derivatives and conventional fossil fuels.
Project description
This project will be dealing with detailing, analysing and characterizing PSW in the State of Kuwait, and conversion of the plastic fraction to high value products. The focus of the research will be revolving around the optimal obtention of chemicals (e.g., petrochemicals and petroleum refinery processes products/cuts) from PSW treatment under inert atmospheres utilizing a pilot plant setup, buy means of producing pyrolysis oils (pyro-oil). Next to the pyrolysis activities analysis, hydrotreatment, mathematical modelling and an economic feasibility study will also be executed.
KISR Innovation
This proposed project describes an interesting and promising approach for the utilization of PSW in a pilot plant unit that is a fluidised bed reactor (FBR) currently being patented for international IP protection in collaboration with the University of Guelph in Canada. The work in this project will enable the execution of PSW treatment in FBR units that are of a novel aspect in design and will also allow the international collaboration between partners of this project’s consortium.
ACTIVITIES OF Q8RESEARCH
The main role of Q8Research in this project is (1) to thoroughly analyse the crude pyrolysis oil prior to hydrotreatment (2) fractionation and hydrotreatment of the pyrolysis oil (3) product and marketing advise to the consortium.
PARTNERS
- Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR), KUW
- BioQuest Alliance, BE
- Cyprus University of Technology, GR
- Kuwait Foundation for Advancement of Science (KFAS), KU
- University College London (UCL), OK
SUPPORTED BY
This project has received financial support from the Kuwait Foundation for the Advancement of Science (KFAS), with grant code “AP21-45EC-01”
PROJECT DURATION
June 2022 - September 2023
PROJECT CONTACT
[email protected]