Plastics Recycling Coupled with Enhanced Oil Recovery. A Critical Survey of the Concept

This contribution gives a critical discussion about a concept for plastics recycling with thermal treatment. Plastics wastes are converted into synthesis gas. The crude synthesis gas is injected into exhausted oil reservoirs. In this way atmospheric pollution is avoided. The oil reservoir has filtering capacities. Moreover there is a chance that the hydrogen injected may crack the geopolymers into small fragments that can be removed from the reservoir after an appropriate residence time from a production well. In this way more organic material could be obtained than introduced in the process via plastics wastes. The current contribution discusses the feasibility of the process from thermodynamic and kinetic aspects. The experiments described in the literature which are relevant to this matter are reviewed. The results and conclusions presented in this paper suggest further studies.