Introduction of KIER Pyrolysis Process and 3,000 ton/yr Demonstration Plant

KIER의 열분해유화 공정 기술과 실증플랜트 소개

Since late of 2000, KIER has developed a novel pyrolysis process for production of fuel oils from polymer wastes. It could have been possible due to large-scale funding of the Resource Recycling R&D Center. The target was to develop an uncatalyzed, continuous and automatic process producing oils that can be used as a fuel for small-scale industrial boilers. The process development has proceeded in three stages bench-scale unit, pilot plant and demonstration plant. As a result, the demonstration plant having capacity of 3,000 tons/year has been constructed and is currently under test operation for optimization of operation conditions. The process consisted of four parts ; feeding system, cracking reactor, refining system and others. Raw materials were pretreated via shredding and classifying to remove minerals, water, etc. There were 3 kind of products, oils(80%), gas(15%), carbonic residue(5%). The main products i.e. oils were gasoline and diesel. The calorific value of gas has been found to be about 18,000kcal/$m^3$ which is similar to petroleum gas and shows that it could be used as a process fuel. Key technologies adopted in the process are 1) Recirculation of feed for rapid melting and enhancement of fluidity for automatic control of system, 2) Tubular reactor specially-designed for heavy heat flux and prevention of coking, 3)Recirculation of heavy fraction for prevention of wax formation, and 4) continuous removal & re-reaction of sludge for high yield of main product (oil) and minimization of residue. The advantages of the process are full automation, continuous operation, no requirement of catalyst, minimization of coking and sludge problems, maximizing the product(fuel oil) yield and purity, low initial investment and operation costs and environment- friendly process. In this presentation, background of pyrolysis technology development, the details of KIER pyrolysis process flow, key technologies and the performances of the process will be discussed in detail.