First Report on the Destructive distillation plant at:

Author: Dr. George Georgiadis

Fuels Technologist
9th September 2017

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Contents
First Report on the Destructive distillation plant at ............................................................... 1
Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3
Process Description ............................................................................................................. 4
Introduction ...................................................................................................................... 4
Reactor Section ............................................................................................................ 4
Separation stabilisation Section .................................................................................... 6
Results and Discussion........................................................................................................ 8
Conclusions ......................................................................................................................... 8
Appendix I Test certificate for mixed pyrolysis oil sample ............................................. 9
Appendix II Additional process photos. ....................................................................... 10

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Introduction
Thermal degradation of used tyres into gas and pyro-oil by destructive distillation is
undoubtedly the best solution available for safe and efficient disposal of used tyres. The
practice of landfill or direct incineration is wasteful at best and a missed opportunity at
worst. Piling up of used tyres in various locations in Cyprus has recently resulted in a fire
that produce toxic, noxious emissions that can be easily avoided, see figure 1 below.
Figure 1. Recent fire near Vasiliko
Power station brought back memories
of the 2011nightmare incident.

Skyra Vassas Ltd, installed system at Asgata, is a pioneering effort that will go some way
towards alleviating the burden of these waste tyres. The system comprises of two units, a
pyrolysis reactor and a separation or stabilising unit. These were received and operated
with minimum instructions from the vendors and the erection of the units, installation and
operation is performed on an ad-hoc basis.
On average this operation yields about 50% wt. of liquid, 10% wt. steel wire, 15% gas and
the balance is carbon black. The operation at Skyra Vassas is not optimised and all
products from the 4 separator drums are mixed into a final product tank (labelled H). A
sample from product tank H was sent for analysis to a local laboratory and preliminary
results on this pyrolysis sample indicate that the oil’s boiling range lies pproximately 85% in
the diesel oil range. It is however of poor quality and is off specification, at least with
respect to flash point, sulphur content and cetane number and this renders it unusable
without further treatment.
It is expected that the oil can be improved enough, to be used by the machinery in place at
Skyra Vassas Ltd. Once the operation is optimised, the company will reduce its fuel
consumption by up to 65 %, in money terms this means a short payback time.

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Process Description
Introduction
The destructive distillation system installed at Skyra Vassa Ltd was supplied by Huayin
Energy company. It comprises of 2 sections, a reactor section and a separation or
stabilisation section. The systems apparently were not provided with an operations manual
so it is run in a makeshift manner that at times is hazardous and is clearly neither efficient
nor optimised. All the products that are accumulated in the various separator drums are
comingled into a final product tank H. This in effect destroys all the benefits of having a
separation unit that was purchased in addition to the reactor section.
The two units of the destructive distillation systems can operate independently however
since the produced gas cannot be stored it is used to fire up the furnaces of the two units
thus saving a quantity of the produced pyro oil. The operation of the two sections is
outlined below.
Reactor Section

Figure 1. Company’s provided reactor process flow scheme

The used scrap tyres are fed into the reactor either mechanically, or manually, figure 2.

Figure 2. Mechanical reactor charging Manual reactor charging

The reactor charge door bolted in place and sealed using a gasket, see figure 3.

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 Figure 4. The reactor is constantly rotating
Figure 3 reactor charged and sealed ready
by an electrical motor driven gear and
for start – up.
chain
During the last observed operation, flames were escaping from the furnace seal doors due
to leaking gaskets. This is an extremely hazardous situation since inside the furnace there
is both flammable gas and flammable liquids. It is important to note in the petroleum
industry abnormal operations are the primary cause of industrial accidents.
When heating of the rotating drum is underway (figure 4), the reaction commences and the
carbon chains are cracked into smaller molecules. The rubber in the tyres does not
actually melt since the elastomers are crosslinked and temperature only strengthens its
bonds, much like egg white becomes harder on heating. At high temperature, the bonds
begin to break most likely by the formation of free radicals and this leads to the formation
of hydrocarbon vapours. These vapours from the reactor section are collected over water,
in the oil water separator (figure 6) that acts both as a seal and back-flow protection and as
a cooling medium to the reactors overheads. This does however increase the water
content of the product.
There is no temperature probe in the reactor since the reactor is a rotating cylinder which
makes installation of such devices practically impossible. The pyrolysis operation can be
monitored using a temperature probe installed on the overhead vapour stream, see figure
5. The condensed vapours are collected over water into a drum designated A, figures 5&6.

Overhead Overhead
Pressure temperature
sensors probe

Overhead Seal and

condenser vessel (in
the oil water
separator)

Figure 5. Overhead temperature and Figure 6. Overhead water Seal and

pressure monitoring. condenser vessel.
Heavy condensate collects in drum A.

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This liquid collected in vessel A, is expected to be the least resolved heavy liquid produced
containing the widest range of cuts. Its composition will not be constant since the reactor
temperature is not constant during pyrolysis. The reactor temperature is gradually
increased over a period of 5 to 6 hours and the reaction is assumed to be complete when
no hydrocarbon liquid is observed in the sight glass shown in figure 7.

Figure 7. Sight glass partly filled with Figure 8. Uncondensed vapour from vessel
hydrocarbon and water from the upstream A is further cooled and condensed in
seal drum. vessel B.
Uncondensed vapour from vessel A is further cooled and condensed in vessel B. Both the
contents of vessels A are then pumped to vessel C, see Figure 8. Contents of vessel B are
sent to vessel J for use as fuel for the pyrolysis process. Any non-condensable gases are
further cooled see figure 9 and are diverted to the flare where they are burned see figure
10.

Figure 9. Yellow gas lines divert the Figure 10. Uncondensable gas flaring.
uncondensable gases to the cooler (red) Note that a smoky flame is an indication of
before being sent to flare. aromatics and olefins.

Separation stabilisation Section

The purpose of this unit is to further separate and stabilise the liquids from the reactor
section and to give two products light and heavy cuts approximately corresponding to
diesel and residual fuel oil (mazut). The diesel cut contains some lighter components and
this is clearly shown by its low initial boiling point. The lighter cut is expected to be less
than 5% and along with the gas produced can be used to heat the reactor and stabiliser
sections. Figure 10 shows this unit that is almost identical to the upstream unit except that

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the heated drum is not rotated. Other than that, it is almost identical and can be used
independently. It has the same equipment downstream of the main charged drum as the
reactor section described in the previous section. In this section drums A and B are
assigned the letters D and E respectively.
Two further horizontal steel drums lettered F and G (figure 11) are meant to accumulate
the contents of A and D in drum F and contents of B and E in drum G. Instead all liquids
after being collected in these two drum (F & G) are pumped to a final steel vertical
container designated the letter H, (figure 13).

Figure 10. Reactor section and stabiliser
separation section. Furnace combustion
exhaust gases are connected before
being sent to the exhaust scrubber and
chimney.
Figure 11. Hydrocarbon receiver drums F
and G. Note the vertical drums are open on
the top and may pose a hazard.

Figure 12. Water cooler and exhaust Figure 13. Final product collection drum.
scrubber.

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Results and Discussion
To determine the properties of the pyrolysis oil produced from destructive distillation, an
initial analysis was conducted by Laboil ltd on a sample obtained from the final storage
tank designated “H”.
The results from this analysis, indicated that the pyrolysis mixture contained a wide boiling
range with initial and final boiling points of 96.2oC and 401oC respectively. This range
includes cuts that fall into the naphtha range, 3-5% and extends through the middle
distillate cuts, i.e. kerosene 30 – 35% and ends in the diesel range 80 - 90%. In essence
this oil contains three cuts and therefore needs further separation to render it into a
suitable fuel. It is possible to produce one main product that of diesel by stripping out the
light components this will raise the flash point from 48oC to >55oC.

The flash point of any flammable mixture is dependent on the compounds initial boiling
point and what % of light compounds it contains.

Conclusions
The oil produced by the pyrolysis of tyres and stored in drum H cannot be used as is,
without further treatment. It needs to be stripped of the light components and stabilised into
a product with a high initial boiling point and by extension a high flashpoint.
It is recommended that the stabiliser be heated and maintained at 3 distinct temperatures
at 150 oC, 250 oC and 350oC and to obtain samples from drum D for further analysis. The
results from these will further allow the final configuration and optimisation of the system so
as to produce a usable final bulk product.
As a next step a pilot plant needs to be set up to distil the contents from drum H and thus
determine the right conditions, temperatures and pressures to run the whole system. This
pilot plant needs to be assembled in a suitable location that will be made available at Skyra
Vassa Ltd.

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Appendix I Test certificate for mixed pyrolysis oil sample

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Appendix II Additional process photos.

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