(35a) Evaluation of the Expanded Polystyrene Pyrolysis Process

Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is a material in great demand in the industrial, food and construction markets, among others. Due to this, it is one of the most abundant and invasive waste for the planet, therefore, it is necessary to search for measures that help in the mitigation of said waste. For Colombia, the EPS discarded is part of 13% of the plastics discarded in landfills (3,400 tons / day or 102,000 tons / month approximately). “Colombia is among the 190 countries where the amount of EPS disposed of in landfills is not controlled, an amount that increases according to population density. From this material, important precursors can be obtained by thermochemical transformations. In this context, the present research had the general objective of evaluating the obtaining of fuel precursors from the pyrolysis of EPS. The raw material was obtained from household appliance packaging and food packaging. The material underwent the drying, grinding and sieving process. Subsequently, it was characterized physicochemically with the techniques of proximate analysis, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA), ultimate analysis and calorific value. From the foregoing, the ideal conditions were established to carry out the pyrolysis. The pyrolysis time was one (1) hour and the product that was obtained the most was solid, followed by gas and liquid, with special interest in liquid product, these products were characterized by calorific value, FITR and elemental analysis to the solid product.