Production of diesel-range oil through pyrolysis of polyolefins recovered from municipal solid waste

Pyrolysis is an effective method to valorize plastic waste and obtain value-added fuels. This study adopted the ANN-GA (artificial neural network-genetic algorithm) coupled with a central composition factorial design to optimize the oil production from the pyrolysis of waste polyolefins (WP). The interactive effects of PE mass fraction (20–80 wt%), residence time (20–60 min), and carrier gas flow rate (0–100 mL/min) on the yields of WP pyrolysis products were investigated extensively by ANN. Moreover, the highest WP pyrolysis oil production of 78.87 wt%, optimized by GA, was obtained under 80 wt% PE, 60 min, and 0 mL/min. It was found that the different conditions of PE mass fraction, residence time, and carrier gas flow rate did not change the types of oil’s main functional groups (−CH₂−, −C=C−, −C=CH₂, −CH₃, and =C−H). The conditions affected the WP pyrolysis oil fractions significantly. The highest diesel selectivity of 91.42% was obtained under 20 wt% PE, 20 min, and 0 mL/min. Additionally, according to the interactive effects of different conditions on the productions of WP pyrolysis products, the pyrolysis pathways were proposed to understand the pyrolysis mechanism of WP better.