S A ALIU

Over the years, we have seen a great increase in the production of plastics due to its inclusion in many sectors. This huge surge in the production of plastics has also seen a rapid increase in plastic waste, the increase in plastic waste is due to some factors like: plastics take around 500 years to decompose, recycling of plastics takes more energy and costs more than the production of new plastics, each time plastics are recycled, they become weaker. The need to find adequate disposal methods and proper management of plastics has never been more important, this led to the research of thermal pyrolysis and also the design and fabrication of a pyrolysis reactor. Pyrolysis is the thermal decomposition of waste in an oxygen free (inert) environment, this process makes it possible to thermally decompose plastic wastes and derive useful fuel oils from them. In this research, three experiments were carried out using different types of plastics namely: Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET), Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE) and High-Density Polyethylene (HDPE). These three plastics gave different results after the pyrolysis process.