Two-fold advancement in LDPE Pyrolysis: Enhancing light oil output and substituting sand with kaolin in a fluidized bed system.

• Silica alumina (Kaolin) catalyst enhances pyrolysis oil yield by 4.4% instead of gas yield reduction. • The optimum temp. for LDPE catalytic(Kaolin) pyrolysis is 520 °C lower than 560 °C at sand pyrolysis. • Light oil fractions increased to 11.9% (2.58 time more) over kaolin LDPE pyrolysis in FB reactor. • Kaolin has the potential to serve as a reliable substitute for sand. Low-density polyethylene (LDPE) is the second most prevalent waste plastic globally, followed by polypropylene. The pyrolytic conditions required to obtain light oil(≤C12) from LDPE are more stringent than those for polypropylene, water plastics, acrylonitrile, butadiene, styrene, and other materials. Consequently, numerous researchers have underscored the necessity of employing catalysts in LDPE pyrolysis. This study explored the pyrolysis characteristics of LDPE at various temperatures in a non-catalytic fluidized bed reactor. The experiments employed a mixture of sand + kaolin, one of the Si-Al catalysts, to investigate the pyrolysis of LDPE in a fluidized bed reactor at different temperatures. The findings demonstrated that using sand + kaolin as a fluidized bed material significantly enhances the yield of pyrolysis oil while concurrently reducing the gas yield compared to using sand alone. Moreover, a higher light oil fraction was obtained using kaolin (16.67 wt%) at 560 °C compared with 8.6 wt%. In addition, the study revealed that elevated temperatures (520 °C, 560 °C, and 600 °C) led to a reduction in olefins and paraffin, coupled with an increase in the formation of naphthenes, aromatics, and ketones in the pyrolysis oil. Overall, the findings underscore the promising potential of kaolin as an alternative to sand, facilitating the enhanced production of valuable light oil fractions. The insights garnered from this study are invaluable for devising effective waste management strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]