Plastic Waste Pyrolysis with Liquid Recycle

A method for performing pyrolysis on a plastic feedstock, comprising:

• mixing a feedstock comprising plastic particles having an average diameter of 3.0 cm or less with a recycled effluent fraction to form a slurry of plastic particles in recycled effluent, a weight ratio of the recycled effluent fraction to the plastic particles being 1.0 or more, the mixing being performed at a temperature of 150° C. or less;
• introducing the slurry of plastic particles in recycled effluent into a fluidized bed pyrolysis reactor, the slurry of plastic particles in recycled effluent being exposed to a temperature of 300° C. or more for a thermal residence time of 30 seconds or less prior to the introduction into the fluidized bed pyrolysis reactor;
• pyrolyzing the slurry of plastic particles in recycled effluent in the fluidized bed pyrolysis reactor at a temperature of 500° C. to 900° C. to form a pyrolysis effluent, the fluidized bed comprising heat transfer particles, the pyrolysis conditions comprising a single pass conversion of 15 wt % to 50 wt % relative to a conversion temperature of 370° C. or less;
• separating at least a portion of the heat transfer particles from the pyrolysis effluent;
• and
• separating the pyrolysis effluent to form a bottoms fraction comprising the recycled effluent fraction and at least one additional fraction, the bottoms fraction comprising a T10 distillation point of the conversion temperature or less.