Pyrolysis is one of the most efficient methods to recycle various types of solid waste and turn it into fuel oil and carbon black. If you’ve been in this industry for a while now, you probably know how important the pyrolysis reactor design is. This article takes an in-depth look into the influence of the pyrolysis reactor design on the efficiency of the process.
First of all, you should know that there are several types of reactors, each of them with its own working principle, design, advantages and drawbacks. This is why you should make sure you acknowledge these differences before purchasing a new pyrolysis plant. The main types of reactors are: fixed bed, fluidized bed, transported bed, spouted fluid bed, entrained flow, rotating cone, auger or screw, vortex centrifuge, plasma pyrolysis, ablative, and pyros. As you can see, there’s a lot to research before being able to buy your equipment.
In a fixed bed design, sample particles are stacked until the desired bed depth is reached. Then, the reactor walls diffuse heat, triggering the expansion of volatile substances. The result is a gradual increase of the pressure inside the reactor. This pressure gradient leads to the slow elimination of these volatiles from the reactor. This is one of the most sought-after reactor design, as it offers several advantages that are hard to overlook. However, it also has the drawback associated with secondary reactions between stacked particles and volatile compounds. Despite this downside, the fixed bed design is the choice of many manufacturers, as it is fairly easy to construct and to use. It can save many hours of operator training, since the working principle is very easy to understand even by beginners: https://www.bestongroup.com/.
As advanced technologies have become mainstream, many pyrolysis machine manufacturers invested in creating new models of fast pyrolysis reactors. Thanks to temperature controlled condensers, these machines are able to distill various oils by their molecular weight category. This is an absolute novelty that has changed the way recycling companies process waste rubber, plastic and household garbage. Nonetheless, this type of equipment is still under development, so it may take a few more years until it becomes readily available.
This is only an example of reactor design. If you’re interested in learning more bout all other types of reactors, you may want to search for some studies and literature on this topic. Alternatively, you can ask some manufacturers of pyrolysis equipment to provide you with their technical documentation and to guide you throughout the entire purchasing process. They should know better than anyone else how their reactors work and what are the right designs for the different industries or areas of applicability. After you understand the differences between them, you’ll know which one to choose for your recycling facility or laboratory.
It wouldn’t be bad if you could check the price of multiple waste plastic and tyre pyrolysis plant, from different sources, in order to have a better understanding of the market for such equipment. Your efforts will surely pay off, as you’ll make savings on your purchase.