Worlds' biggest environment problem is set to produce the world’s most-sought commodity. Results of 11 experiments conducted between July 1-10 at Indian Oil Corporation’s R&D centre at Faridabad show that the plastic-to-petrol process invented by Umesh and Alka Zadgaonkar yields 40-60 per cent liquid petroleum from a kilo of waste plastic. The plastic can include polyvinyl chlorides, carrybags, broken buckets or PET bottles. The outcome is significant for India, which produces 7,000 tonnes of waste plastic every day. The Zadgaonkar invention was first reported in The Sunday Express in June 2003. Alka is the head of the department of applied chemistry at Nagpur’s Raisoni College of Engineering and holds two Indian patents. The Zadgaonkars had refused to sell the idea to the foreign companies and had said they trusted the IOC. Their secret formula: Shredded plastic waste—free of oxygen—is heated with coal and a secret chemical. The products include 80 per cent fuel range liquids, 5 per cent coke and 15 per cent LPG range gases. However, it may take some time before the process yields petrol and diesel for commercial use. An IOC official said while the fractionation yielded ready-to-use industrial furnace oil, production of gasoline required stabilisation additives and in case of petrol, the cetane number would have to be pumped up. Low cetane number leads to ignition troubles and is a problem in the smooth running of the engine. While the Zadgaonkars invented the process and the catalyst that breaks long hydrocarbon chains of plastic into smaller segments of petroleum products, IOC helped improve the liquid quality by minimising the diene content and lowering the high chlorine content. The state-run Oil Industry Development Board will be asked to fund a Rs 7.86-crore demonstration plant at Nagpur, where the Zadgaonkars live. ‘‘In the current scenario, plastic waste disposal is a cost centre. The development of a useful technology can lead to setting up of a commercial plant that can convert waste plastic management into a profit centre,’’ justifies IOC. The pilot five-tonne-per-day plant will be set up to implement product quality, study the effects of feed variation, establish the possible outlets for the output, optimise process condition and generate reliable design data for using municipal waste. ‘‘It is not an alternative commercial source for fuels but a proposition to address the emerging concern about utilising waste plastic and keeping the environment clean,’’ says an IOC official.
