Aviation Fuel Derived from Waste Plastics

Aviation fuels are in great demand globally. The increased demand and high price for energy sources are driving efforts to convert natural non-renewable organic compounds into useful hydrocarbon fuel materials such as aviation fuel. Alternate sources to these non-renewable hydrocarbon fuels are important and necessary. Much of these alternative sources are focused on biomass however there are strong benefits to deriving fuels from waste plastic material. Waste plastic is abundant and its disposal creates large problems for the environment. Thermal processes can be used to convert plastics into hydrocarbon fuels such as aviation fuel, which have unlimited applications in airline industries, as well as in transportation and power generation industries. These thermal processes are used to break down the long carbon chains found in plastics into the shorter chains that exist in aviation fuel or other type fuels. Natural State Research (NSR) has developed a simple and economically viable process to convert the hydrocarbon polymers of waste plastics into the short and medium chain hydrocarbons of liquid fuels. Based on the initial characterization, a fractionated portion of the NSR developed fuel shows properties similar to available aviation fuels.