Method and equipment for producing hydrocarbons by catalytic decomposition of plastic waste products in a single step

A continuous process for the production of aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons comprising:

• i.) thermally pretreating a plastic waste material contaminated with oils and/or pigments in an inert gas atmosphere at a temperature between 260° C. and 325° C. to produce a contaminated liquid plastic mass, wherein the plastic waste material contaminated with oils and/or pigments is a single plastic or a mixture of different plastics;
• ii.) homogenizing the contaminated liquid plastic mass to produce a homogenized contaminated liquid plastic mass;
• iii.) feeding the homogenized contaminated liquid plastic mass to a reaction apparatus containing a bed of particles of porous material, wherein the reaction apparatus is selected from the group consisting of a packed bed reactor, a fluidized bed reactor, and a mixed flow reactor and wherein the particles of porous material comprise both natural porous aluminosilicates and spent porous synthetic aluminosilicates;
• iv.) thermocatalytically decomposing the homogenized contaminated liquid plastic mass by contacting the homogenized contaminated liquid plastic mass with the bed of particles of porous material at a temperature between 460° C. and 550° C. and at atmospheric pressure to generate a gaseous mixture containing aliphatic hydrocarbons having between 1 and 44 carbon atoms and aromatic hydrocarbons having between 1 and 44 carbon atoms;
• and
• v.) separating the gaseous mixture to obtain a liquid mixture of hydrocarbons and a non-condensable stream of hydrocarbons.