Does Waste Plastic Need to Be Cleaned Before Pyrolysis?

Many people assume that waste plastics must be cleaned before being processed in a pyrolysis plant. However, the answer is no — waste plastics don't need to be thoroughly cleaned before pyrolysis. For one of the major advantages of pyrolysis technology is its ability to handle mixed and unwashed plastic waste efficiently.

Pyrolysis is a thermal decomposition process that breaks down waste plastics in the absence of oxygen, converting them into valuable products such as fuel oil, carbon black, and syn-gas. During this process, the high temperature (usually 350–550°C) decomposes organic matter and removes most contaminants naturally. Therefore, ordinary dust, dirt on the surface of plastics does not affect the reaction or the oil yield.

In industrial operations, waste plastics collected from landfills, municipal waste sorting centers, or factories can be processed directly after simple shredding and drying. There is no need for water washing or chemical cleaning, which saves a large amount of labor, water resources, and costs. Of course, it is still recommended to remove non-plastic materials such as metals, glass, and stones before feeding, since these materials do not decompose and may damage the equipment.

In conclusion, waste plastics can be recycled with pyrolysis machine directly, but if you have enough time and budget, you can also make some further cleaning on waste plastics before feeding. There is no doubt that if you clean and dry the waste plastics raw materials before it enters the pyrolysis plant, you may get a higher oil yield.

In addition to the raw material pretreatment, here Huayin can provide some other suggestions for you to help you enhance the whole recycling performance:

1. Raw material selection: pyrolysis machine can recycle various waste plastics, which have different oil yield from 50% to 80%. If you don't want to make other additional processing on waste plastics, you can select plastics with higher oil yield and lower water content, such as pure pp/pe/ps/abs plastics. Also, select a suitable storage location for them is very important.

2. Pyrolysis plant selection: pyrolysis plant with mature pyrolysis technology and high-standard configurations can make full pyrolysis on plastic waste to reach the best performance.

Huayin waste plastic pyrolysis machine has gone through multiple technical improvements to enhance the best performance of the whole operation, and had successful projects in over 120 countries. If you are interested in our waste plastic pyrolysis machine, welcome to send your inquiry to us directly!