Scientists now believe that environmentally-hazardous plastic may be the answer to India’s crude oil woes.
The Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP) here claimed to have carried out experiments for successfully converting plastic, like polyethylene and polypropylene, into petroleum products.
State-run gas major GAIL India now sees a big scope for future oil production in these laboratory tests. GAIL has also agreed to set up a pilot plant to explore its economic viability on a mass-scale.
“We are on the right track to take our experiment to the logical conclusion with GAIL. Let’s hope for the best,” said Dr Sanat Kumar, a scientist from IIP who is involved in the project.
A team of six scientists from IIP, led by its director M O Garg, managed to achieve a breakthrough in developing new catalysts that can convert plastic either into petrol or diesel or aromatics along with LPG as a common byproduct.
GAIL India had sponsored the entire project.
More From This Section
The unique features of the technology is that the liquid fuel meets Euro III norms and different petroleum products can be obtained from the same raw material simply by changing the catalysts and operating parameters. “We are working closely with GAIL to exploit the experiment commercially,” said Dr Kumar. A team of GAIL has already descended at IIP campus in this regard.
Over 300 experiments in the lab were undertaken during the past few years before reaching a decisive conclusion of getting petroleum products from plastic, scientists said.