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FEASIBILITY STUDY FOR THERMAL TREATMENT OF SOILD TIRE WASTES IN BANGLADESH BY USING FIXED BED FIRTE TUBE HEATING

PYROLYSIS TECHNOLOGY
M.R. ISLAM*, M. PARVEEN** AND H. HANIU** *Department of Mechanical Engineering, Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology, Rajshahi-6204, Bangladesh **Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University Corporation Kitami Institute of Technology, 165 Koen-cho, Kitami City, Hokkaido 090-8507, Japan

SUMMARY: In this study on the basis of lab data and available resources in Bangladesh, feasibility study has been carried out for pyrolysis process converting solid tire wastes into pyrolysis oils, solid char and gases. The process considered for detailed analysis was fixed-bed fire-tube heating pyrolysis reactor system. The comparative techno-economic assessment was carried out in US$ for three different size plants: laboratory scale (18 kg/day), pilot scale (3.6 ton/day) and commercial scale (36 ton/day). The assessment showed that commercial scale plant was economically feasible, with the lowest unit production cost than pilot and laboratory scale plants for the production of crude pyrolysis oil that could be used as boiler fuel oil and for the production of upgraded liquid-products. 1. INTRODUCTION The standard of living and quality of life of a nation depend on its per capita energy consumption. Bangladesh a developing country, and is one of the most densely populated (914 persons/km2) countries in the world. Her per capita energy consumption in 2005 stands at 227 kgOE, which is much below the world average of 1778 kg OE. The energy consumption mix was estimated as: indigenous biomass 60%, indigenous natural gas 27.45%, and imported oil 11.89%, imported coal 0.44% and hydro 0.23%. Thus, it is crucial to find out alterantive and sustainable resources to mitigate the energy crisis in Bangladesh. It is estimated that 30.75103 metric tons bicycle/rickshaw tires, 5160 metric tons motorcycle tires, and 28907.50 metric tons bus and truck tires become scrap and are disposed of every year. The disposal of non-biodegradable solid tire wastes from human activity is a growing environmental problem for the modern society, especially in developing countries. Unfortunately, most of these scrap tires are simply dumped under open sky in Bangladesh. Open

Proceedings Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste Venice, Italy; 8-11 November 2010 2010 by CISA, Environmental Sanitary Engineering Centre, Italy

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

dumping may result in accidental fires with highly toxic emissions or may act as ideal breeding grounds for disease carrying mosquitoes and other vermin with the aid of rain water. In recent years, many attempts have been made to find new ways to recycle tires, i.e., tire grinding and crumbling to recycle rubber powders and tire incineration to supply thermal energy in utility boilers to produce electricity, in cement kilns and brick fields. However, all of which have significant drawbacks and/or limitations. Pyrolysis as an attractive method to recycle scrap tires has recently been the subject of renewed interest. Pyrolysis of tires can produce oils, chars, and gases, in addition to the steel cords, all of which have the potential to be recycled. Within the last 3 decades very different experimental process for laboratory and pilot scale including continuous ablative (Brown, 1996), vacuum moving-bed (Roy and Unsworth, 1997), fluidized bed (Kaminsky, 1995), two-stage moving-bed (Cypres and Bettens, 1989) and continuous rotary kiln (Li et al., 2004), but not fixed-bed reactors with fire-tube heating have been studied. Within the past several years, research and development works have been carried out for the fixed-bed fire-tube heating pyrolysis reactor system at Rajshahi University of Engineering & Technology (RUET) in collaboration with National University Corporation Kitami Institute of Technology by the research grants from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science. Pyrolysis of various organic solid wastes in the laboratory scale fixed-bed fire-tube heating pyrolysis reactor has been successfully completed and the results have been reported in several publications (Islam et al., 2007, 2008a, 2008b, 2010). The objectives of this study are: (i) to establish a conceptual design for pilot and commercial scale plants and (ii) to carry out a comparative techno-economic analysis.

2. SUMMARY OF EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS The locally made GAZI brands of bicycle/rickshaw tires, Indian made MRF brands of motorcycle tires and truck tires, which are the most prevalent types in their catagory in Bangladesh, were used as experimental substrate throughout the experimental studies. The samples were collected locally from a dumped site of the Rajshahi City Corporation. The detail study for pyrolysis kinetics of the available solid tire wastes has been published elsewhere (Islam et al., 2009). The average product yields data from the lab experiments for three different tire wastes were: Gas = 9 wt%; Tire Pyrolysis Oil = 46 wt%; Carbon = 35 wt% and Steel = 10 wt% of solid tire wastes. 2.1 Physical and chemical charecteristics of the pyrolytic oil fractions The pyrolytic liquids obtained from pyrolysis of selected tire wastes, which are oily organic compounds, appear dark-brown-color with a strong acrid smell. No phase separation was found to take place in the storage bottles. The density, viscosity, flash point, pour point, pH value and GCV of the tire-derived liquids are 965-970 kg/m3; 4.75-4.90 cSt; 32 oC; up to -6 oC; 4.25-4.80 and 40.80-42.50 MJ/kg, respectively. The corresponding values for fuel oil No. 2 are 870 kg/m3; 4.2 cSt; 60 oC; up to -18 oC and 45.00 MJ/kg. Elemental analysis of the pyrolytic liquid gave the following (by weight): C = 84.80-85.86%; H = 9.01-9.33%; N = 0.50-0.70%; S = 0.9-1.36%; O = 2.87-4.17% and ash = 0.10-0.31%. The corresponding percentage for fuel oil No. 2 are C = 87.20%; H = 12.50%; N = 0.02%; S = 0.30%; and ash = 0.03%. FT-IR analysis results show that the liquids contain mainly aliphatic and aromatic compounds. The hydrogen distributions obtained from the 1H NMR spectrums indicated that no aliphatic carbon was bound to oxygen. Clearly, the main structure of the liquids seemed to be aliphatic bonded to aliphatic only, and as a result the carbon aromaticity of the

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

liquids was comparatively low. The alkanes and long alkyl spectrums are probably largely derived from solid tire wastes. Details of the GC/MS analysis and lists of possible compounds identified in the tire derived pyrolysis liquids have been presented in the authors previous papers (Islam et al., 2007, 2008a, 2008b). It was found that, tire pyrolysis liquids were very complex mixture from C5-C20, containing many aliphatic (42-65% peak area) and aromatic (5-18% peak area) compounds. The GC/MS results supported well the results obtain from FT-IR and 1H NMR analyses. The aliphatic compounds were mainly of alkane and alkene groups but the second was predominant in all of the three tire-derived liquids. The aromatic compounds were only single ring alkyl aromatics. In addition to the main hydrocarbons, small percentage of nitrogen, sulphur, oxygen and chlorine containing compounds were also identified. TGA distillation test shows that more than 30 wt% of such oils is easily distillable fraction with boiling points between 70oC, and 210oC, which is the boiling point range specified for commercial petrol. A typical boiling range for diesel oil is from 150 to 370oC. The pyrolytic oil fraction corresponding to the 150 - 370oC is about 60 wt% of the total oils. In order to establish the real potential use of such tire oil fraction as diesel oil, a more thorough characterisation of it, which should include cetane index, corrosive properties, flash point, etc., is needed. Fuel oil No. 1 is a light distillate which consists primarily of hydrocarbons in the C9-C16 range; fuel oil No. 2 is a heavier distillate with hydrocarbons in the C11-C20 range. Diesel fuels predominantly contain a mixture of C10 through C19 hydrocarbons, which include approximately 64% aliphatic hydrocarbons, l-2% olefinic hydrocarbons, and 35% aromatic hydrocarbons. Therefore, after filtration, centrifugation and desulphurization the pyrolytic liquids can be used directly as fuel oils or blended with diesel fuels for industrial furnaces, power plants, and boilers. 2.2 Solid char fractions The solid char fractions obtained at optimum reactor conditions were of equal size and shape as original tire pieces, which were easily disintegrable into black powder and steel cords. Elemental analysis of the pyrolytic char gave the following (by weight): C = 77.30-83.34%; H = 0.701.10%; N = 0.25-0.40%; S = 2.35-3.35% and O + ash = 13.36-18.15%. Almost similar chemical compositions were found by the previous studies (Helleur et al., 2001) while metallic elements Zn, Si, Ti, Al, Fe, Na, Ca, Pb and Mg in the ash were also indentified. The GCV of char fraction is 23.28-27.80 MJ/kg, which is compareable with that of the good quality coal. Pyrolystic char has potential as semireiforcing commercial blacks for footwear, conveyor belts, dock fenders etc., which are not so high quality demanding as automotive tires or a printing ink pigment, as a carbon absorbent after proper activation and as a solid or slurry fuel (Redriguez et al., 2001). 2.3 Gas fractions The compositional analysis of gas fractions showed that tire derived pyrolysis gases are mainly consisted of hydrocarbons together with some CO, CO2, H2 and N2. Their relative amounts by volume: CH4 = 18.41-21.00%; C2H4 = 7.32-11.22%; C2H6 = 5.30-9.40%; C3H6 = 5.75-10.62%; C3H8 = 2.25-4.60%; C4H6 = 3.11-4.31%; C4H8 = 7.52-15.65%; C4H10 = 1.42-4.64%; C5H10 = 0.7-1.85%; C5H12 = 1.12-3.70%; C6H12 = 0.55-1.65%; C6H14 = 1.3-1.85%; CO = 3.3-4.50%; CO2 = 8.00-10.23%; H2 = 14.11-18.10%; N2 = 3.00-3.07%. The GCV of the pyrolysis gases is 37.85 -40.72 MJ/m3, which is very close to that of natural gas (about 39 MJ/m3 at NTP) and hence it would be sufficient to provide the heat energy required by the pyrolysis process. More or less similar gas composition are also obtained by Rodriguez et al., 2001 with better GCV of 75.50 MJ/m3 or 42.1 MJ/kg. The former research group (Roy and Unsworth 1997) also found the GCV of tire derived pyrolytic gas 35-40 MJ/kg and reported that this value is sufficient to heat pyrolysis reactor.

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

3. TECHNO-ECONOMIC ASSESSMENT AND RESULTS 3.1 Approach for techno-economic assessment The production cost for crude pyrolysis oil from solid tire waste feedstock was determined for three cases: laboratory scale, pilot and commercial scale plants. The raw pyrolysis oil and, two by-products solid carbon black and separated steel will be sold and hence upgrading and refining costs for these products have not been included. The production cost was determined by estimating the capital and the operating costs for collection and shredding process of tire wastes, tire pyrolysis process, separation of steel from carbon black and, processing the plant emissions and effluents to conform to environmental restrictions. 3.1.1 Capital costs The capital cost for the plant was determined by summing the costs related to the major pieces of base equipment. The base equipment costs are estimated using published data and the quotes from manufacturers. The base equipment costs were then multiplied by a direct-cost factor, a building factor, a site improvement factor, and a utilities factor to obtain the total cost for a piece of equipment. The direct cost factor used for this study was taken to have an average value of 1.1. The factors used for the required buildings, site improvements, and utilities are 1.15, 1.06 and 1.16, respectively. This was then multiplied by an indirect-cost factor of 1.1 to account for the fabrication and installation costs and the design and engineering costs (Elliott et al., 1990). The resulting figure provided the Fixed Capital Investment (FCI). The Total Capital Requirement (TCR) for a plant was determined by adding to the FCI, the start-up costs (10% of FCI) and the working capital (5% of FCI). It is worth mentioning that the costs of land and contingencies were not included in the cost estimate. The capital charges were determined by the use of the annuity method to arrive at an equally distributed-leveled capital charge. This is represented by the formula given in Equation (1).

ACC=

C I 1 (1 + I ) N

(1)

where ACC the annualised capital cost; C the capital cost; I the interest rate and N the plant life time. 3.1.2 Operating costs The majority of the fixed operating costs were based on percentages of the FCI. Operating labour and electricity cost were estimated based on the report by Fels and Pegg, 2008 of the Dalhousie University. The capital charges in the form of ACC were added to the fixed and variable operating costs to determine the total production cost of the product for the plants. Afterwards, the laboratory data of product yields were used to determine the Unit Production Cost (UPC) of pyrolysis liquid. 3.2 Bases of assessment The assumptions and costs of the various parameters used to determine production costs for 18 kg/day, 3.6 ton/day and 36 ton/day capacity of tire wastes pyrolysis plants are considered on the basis of lab data and available resources in Bangladesh. Plant location, time and currency for the assessment are in Bangladesh, 2010, US$, respectively. The Maintenance labor, Maintenance materials, Overheads, Insurance and Other fixed operating costs are considered as 1%, 3%, 2%,

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

2%, and 1% of FCI, respectively. Feedstock cost, Labor rate, LPG price, Nitrogen gas price, Electricity price are assumed for this analysis as 20 US$/ton, 0.75 US$/h, 9 US$ per cylinder of 12 kg, 5 US$ per cylinder of 6.3 m3, 0.10 US$/kWh, respectively. Total numbers of labours are 1, 5 and 45 for laboratory, pilot and commercial scale plants, respectively. The plant life is considered 20 years while interest rate on its capital investment is 10%. 3.3 Processes evaluated The conceptual design for pilot and commercial scale pyrolysis plants is presented in Figure 1. Scrap tires are collected from dump sites by trucks, weighed and stockpiled in the plant compound. The tires are cleaned with compressed air and then put into the shredder to produce chips of about 4 cm3. The shredded tires then are conveyed to the drier and afterwards are fed into the fire-tube heating pyrolysis reactor. This is an internal heating, vertically positioned, cylindrical reactor of 2.5 m diameter and 10 m high. A total of 9 fire-tubes of 20 cm diameter are placed inside the reactor, 8 of them are on 1.5 m cirle at 450 intervals with 1 at the center. The tire pieces are heated to about 475oC by passing the hot flue gases through fire-tubes. The hot gases are produed by the combustion of the 90% pyrolysis gases into the furnace. The flue gas from the fire-tube heating reactor is exhausted into the atmosphere through a chimney, via carrier gas pre-heater and feedstock drier. The size of the pilot plant reactor chamber is calculated as 1.25 m in diameter and 4 m high with 9 fire-tubes of 10 cm diameter. The solid residue that exits the pyrolysis reactor contains both carbon black and the steel from the tires. The steel is separated magnetically, baled and shipped to recycle. The pyrolysis vapor products from the reactor are pushed out to the condenser, whereby the pyrolysis oil is separated from the gases. The gaseous product is compressed and used to provide the energy for the pyrolysis reactions. The oil is then pumped to storage tanks. The oil would, of necessity, be sold and used as a feedstock for an oil refinery.

Shreder Waste tires collection Steel wire sold to recycle company Drier Chimney Flue gas Pre-heater 10% Recycle by-product gas Condenser 90% Recycle by-product gases supplied to the furnace

Pylysis reactor

Maganetic separator

Pyrolysis vapor 10% Recycle as carrier gas Furnace Hot flue gas as heat source

Cooling water in/out Crude pyrolysis oils sold to refinery company Tank

Compressor

Carbon black sold to recycle company

Air

Figure 1. Conceptual design for pilot and commercial scale pyrolysis plants.

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

3.4 Results and discussions A summary of the different cost items, the total and unit production costs of pyrolysis oil for three different-scale plants are given in Table 1. In the case of the bench-scale unit, the electricity cost, the carrier gas N2 cost and the operating labor cost were found to be dominating cost items. For pilot and commercial units, the capital cost, the feedstock cost and the operating labor cost were found to be the major cost items affecting the total production costs of the pyrolysis oils. The pilot and commercial scale plants were considered to be based on the recycling of 10% of pyrolysis product gases as the carrier gas, in which case nitrogen gas cost was omitted. It is evident from the Table 1 that the commercial scale plant of 36 ton/day capacity was producing the lowest cost primary pyrolysis oil. Talbe 1 shows that the unit production cost for pilot and commercial scale plant are $300/ton and $205/ton, respectively, whice are much lower than those of the previous estimations (Fels and Pegg, 2008; Elliott et al., 1990; Huffman and Shah, 1998) due to lower plant operating and maintenance costs. Total amount of separated steel and solid carbon black is 45 wt% of solid tire waste. If both of these two by-products would be sold at a rate of $150/ton; the total amount of revenue income will be $760590 and $76059 for pilot and commercial scale plants, respectively. If the revenue is deducted from the total production cost the unit production cost will be reduced to $150/ton and $60/ton for pilot and commercial plant, respectively. Fels and Pegg, 2008 quoted in their report the selling price of tire waste derived crude pyrolysis oil $400/ton whereas the price of furnace oil in Bangladesh is $400/ton. Thus the production of pyrolysis oil from used tires in Bangladesh has good potential. Table 1 - Summery of production cost for solid tire waste pyrolysis-base case in US$. Plant capacity 18 kg/day 3.6 ton/day 36 ton/day Base equipment cost 800 0.20106 1106 6 Fixed capital investment (FCI) 2602 0.342210 1.711106 Total capital required 2992 0.3935106 1.9675106 Annualized capital cost/Capital charges 352 46220 231102 Variable operating cost: Feedstock 113 22536 225360 Electricity (including wastewater treatment by 1032 25000 200000 centrifugal separator) LPG 225 --Nitrogen gas 1431 --Fixed operating cost: Operating labor 5634 28170 253530 Maintenance labor + maintenance materials + 234 30798 153990 overheads + insurance + Total operating cost 8669 106504 832880 Total production cost of pyrolysis oil 9021 152724 1063982 Unit production cost of pyrolysis oil (US$/ton) 3482 300 205

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

3.5 Product cost sensitivities The sensitivity case analysis of the capital cost, the feedstock cost, and the operating labor cost were taken into account for pilot and commercial plants. Sensitivities cases analysis for feedstock and operating labour costs were made to account for differences among the south Asian countries. A trird sensivity case was analysed for variations in the capital costs to account for uncertainity of the capital cost estimates and variation in equipment cost quotes from different manufacturers. Sensitivities of the Unit Production Cost (UPC) have been examined by considering 50% higher and double costs for capital, feedstock and operating labour. The effects for variations of these costs on the Unit Production Cost in US$/ton are presented by bar chart in Figure 2. This figure shows that UPC is more sensitive to capital cost in case of pilot plant while it is more sensitive to operating labour cost in case of commercial plant. If the capital cost becomes double than its present value and other cost remains unchanged the production costs will be $383.82/ton for pilot plant and it will be $249.86/ton for commercial plant that are 28% and 22% increments in production cots, respectively. Double feedstock cost increases 13% and 21%; double operating labour cost increases 16% and 24% UPC for pilot and commercial plants, respectively. Unfortunately, all of the three costs increase together by 50% and 100%, the UPC will be $388.14/ton and $481.64/ton, respectively for pilot plant while these values will be $273.76/ton and $336.24/ton, respectively for commercial plant. The UPC under this unexpected situation is still lower than those of the present furnace oil price in Bangaldesh and the selling price of the pyrolysis oil quoted by Fels and Pegg, 2008. Even of the tremendous increase in UPC, the revenue income from the sale of two by-products carbon black and steel might be credited. Moreover, a big amount of hazardous solid wate like used tires would be managed properly; the dependence on imported petroleum crude oils and unemployment problem of Bangaldesh would be reduced as well.

4. CONLUSIONS In the case of bench-scale unit, the electricity cost, the carrier gas N2 cost and the operating-labor cost appeared to be the dominating cost items affecting the UPC. The UPC for pilot and commercial plants are $300/ton and $205/ton, respectively that are much lower than previous. The revenue income from the sales of by-products carbon black and steel significantly reduce the UPC. The UPC for pilot plant is more sensitive to capital cost and it is more sensitive to operating labour cost in case of commercial plant. The greater the feed throughput (i.e. the plant capacity) the lower is the UPC. Thus, the comercial scale plant is favorable, with better technoeconomics.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The work is supported by Grant-In-Aid for Scientific Research of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (ID No.: P 09094).

REFERENCES Brown, D. B. (1996). Continuous ablative regenerator systems. In Bio-oil Production and Utilisation; Bridgwater, A. V., Hogan, E.N., Eds.; CPL Press: pp. 96. Cypres, R. And Bettens, B. (1989). Production of Benzoles and Active Carbon from Waste

Venice 2010, Third International Symposium on Energy from Biomass and Waste

Rubber and Plastic aterials by Means of Pyrolysis with Simultaneous Post-cracking. In Pyrolysis and gasification; Ferrero, G. L., Maniatis, K., Buekens, A., Eds.; Elsevier Applied Science: London, U.K. Elliott, D.C., Baker, E.G., Beckman, D., Solantausta, Y., Tolenhiemo, V., Gevert, S.B., Hornel, C., Ostman, A. and Kjellstrom, B. (1990). Technoeconomic assesment if direct biomass liquefaction to transport fuels. Biomass, 22; pp. 251-69. Fels, M. and Pegg, M. (2008). A techno-economic and environmental assessment of a tire pyrolysis plant. Reported from the Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS; Canada. Helleur, R.Popovic, N., Ikura, M., Stanciulescu, M. and Liu, D. (2001). Characterization and potential applications of pyrolystic char from ablative Pyrolysis of used tyres. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysys, 58-59; pp. 813-24. Huffman G.P. and Shah, N. (1998). Can waste plastics and tires be recycled economically? ChemTech December, American Chemical Society, pp. 34-43. Islam, M. R., Parveen, M. and Haniu, H. (2010). Properties of sugarcane waste-derived bio-oils obtained by fixed-bed fire-tube heating pyrolysis. Bioresource Technology, Vol. 101, No. 11; pp. 4162-4168. Islam, M. R., Haniu, H. and Fardoushi, J. (2009). Pyrolysis kinetics behavior of solid tire wastes available in Bangladesh. Waste Management, Vol. 29, No. 2; pp. 668-677. Islam, M. R., Haniu, H. and Beg, M. R. A. (2008a). Liquid fuels and chemicals from pyrolysis of motorcycle tire waste: product yields, compositions and related properties. FUEL, Vol. 87, No. 13-14; pp. 3112-3122. Islam, M. R., Tushar, M. S. H. K. and Haniu, H. (2008b). Production of liquid fuels and chemicals from pyrolysis of Bangladeshi bicycle/rickshaw tire wastes. Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysys, Vol. 82, No. 1; pp. 96-109. Islam, M. R., Haniu, H. and Beg, M. R. A. (2007). Limonene-rich liquids from pyrolysis of heavy automotive tire wastes. Journal of Environment and Engineering, Vol. 2, No. 4; p 681695. Kaminsky, W. (1995). Chemical recycling of mixed plastics by pyrolysis. Adv. Polym. Technol. 14, pp. 337. Rodriguez, M.I., Laresgoiti, M.A. Cabrero, A., Torres, M.J. and Caballero, C.B. (2001). Pyrolysis of scrap tyres. Fuel Processing Technology, 72; pp. 9-22. Roy, C.; Unsworth, J. (1989). Pilot-scale plant demostration of used tyres vacumm pyrolysis. In Pyrolysis and gasification; Ferrero, G. L., Maniatis, K., Buekens, A., Eds.; Elsevier Applied Science: London, U.K. S. Q. Li, Q. Yao, Y. Chi, J.H. Yan, and K.F. Cen (2004). Pilot-Scale Pyrolysis of Scrap Tires in a Continuous Rotary Kiln Reactor. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res., 43, pp. 5133-5145

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