Please cite this article in press as: N. Miskolczi, F. Ates ¸ , Thermo-catalytic co-pyrolysis of recovered heavy oil and municipal plastic wastes, J. Anal. Appl. Pyrol. (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaap.2015.11.005 ARTICLE IN PRESS G Model JAAP-3604; No. of Pages 9 Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis xxx (2015) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jaap Thermo-catalytic co-pyrolysis of recovered heavy oil and municipal plastic wastes Norbert Miskolczi a,∗ , Funda Ates ¸ b a MOL Department of Hydrocarbon and Coal Processing, University of Pannonia, 10 Egyetem u., 8200 Veszprém, Hungary b Department of Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Iki Eylul Campus, Anadolu University, 26555 Eskis ¸ ehir, Turkey a r t i c l e i n f o Article history: Received 7 July 2015 Received in revised form 24 October 2015 Accepted 12 November 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Waste Catalyst Co-pyrolysis Contaminant GC–MS a b s t r a c t In this work municipal plastic wastes were co-pyrolyzed together with waste plastic derived heavy oil at 500 ◦ C in a stirred batch reactor using -zeolite, y-zeolite and m-Ni-Mo-catalysts. The effect of the heavy oil/municipal plastic waste ratio to the product properties was basically investigated. Higher pyrolysis oil and gas yields were observed by the using of catalyst and by the re-using of heavy oils. Catalysts could be affecting especially the concentration of hydrogen, isobutene and isopentane in gases. Both pyrolysis oil and heavy oil contained paraffin, olefins, aromatics and cyclic compounds, while the heavy oil had hydrocarbons with higher molecular weight. Based on GC–MS and EDXRFS results the composition of pyrolysis oil and their contaminants were significantly affected by both the waste plastic/heavy oil ratio and catalyst presence. Lower waste plastic/heavy oil ratio and selected catalyst could efficiently decrease the concentration of contaminants and increase the valuable hydrocarbon content. © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Pyrolysis should be an advanced route for waste utilization. As a matter of fact, there are different processes for waste pyrolysis, but only numerous are operates; because the economical prod- uct utilization is a great challenge [1,2]. Especially, the improving of product composition is still opened questions, which must be solved. Generally synthetic zeolites are applied to obtain higher yields of volatiles together with favorable properties: y-zeolite, ZSM-5, -zeolite, MCM-41, etc. [3]. Industrial scale pyrolysis processes converse wastes into gases, pyrolysis oil, heavy oil, tar or even char. Waste derived heavy oil fraction should be also utilized for energetic purpose, but their have lower price. It is known, that heavy oil obtained by waste pyroly- sis contain similar hydrocarbons than pyrolysis oils, but the length of carbon frame and the molecule weight are significantly higher regarding heavy oils. Another difference between the two fractions is that the pyrolysis oil is more expensive than heavy oil. That is why to maximizing the yield of pyrolysis oil is a key question in case of waste polymer pyrolysis. One possible way for heavy oil utilization is their re-using as blending into raw materials of pyrol- ysis and their consequent co-pyrolysis. The co-pyrolysis of different ∗ Corresponding author. E-mail address: mnorbert@almos.uni-pannon.hu (N. Miskolczi). polymers is widely investigated and has much attention in the last decade. Especially the co-pyrolysis of plastics with biomass [4,5] and vacuum gas oil [6] or even with petroleum based heavy oil [7] is well published. However, less information is available about the waste derived heavy oil and waste polymer co-pyrolysis. Besides the advantageous of the waste pyrolysis (e.g., reduction of the disposed waste amount, recovery of chemicals, fuels, valu- able products or fossil fuel replacement, etc.), the main benefit of the waste co-pyrolysis should be the products upgrading. Marcilla et al. have investigated the pyrolysis properties of the vacuum gas oil and polyethylene blends. They have concluded, that the mix- tures of vacuum gas oil and polyethylene is decomposed in two reaction steps; the product yields and properties were significantly affected by not only the presence of FCC, ZSM-5, y-zeolite, -zeolite and Al-MCM-41 catalysts, but also by the ratio of vacuum gas oil and polyethylene [6,8]. Recently, among others Joppert et al. have given a brief summary about the main features of waste polymer co- pyrolysis [9]. It was found, that optimized reaction conditions are needed for advanced product properties and the Fractional Design Methodology should be successfully used to reach favorable prod- uct distribution. In this work real municipal plastic wastes (MPW) were pyrolyzed, and then the heavy oil (HO) product was re-used for their co-pyrolysis together with MPW using different ratios of raw materials. The product yields and properties have been modified by different catalysts: -zeolite, y-zeolite and m-Ni-Mo-catalyst. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaap.2015.11.005 0165-2370/© 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.