Recovery of renewable aromatic and aliphatic hydrocarbon resources from microwave pyrolysis/co-pyrolysis of agro-residues and plastics wastes

[Display omitted] •A new concept in susceptor and feedstock homogenous blending was conducted.•Energy requirements of pyrolysis and co-pyrolysis were comparatively analysed.•Low bulk heating rates resulted in fast/flash Pyrolysis and co-pyrolysis product yields.•Biomass pyrolysis promoted cyclic aliphatic hydrocarbons and aromatic hydrocarbons.•Plastic pyrolysis favoured cyclohexane (WPP) and cyclooctatetraene (EPS) compounds. The present study focussed on recovering the valuable carbon resources from agro-residues (wheat straw, rice husk) and waste plastics (polypropylene, polystyrene) using microwave pyrolysis and co-pyrolysis. The main objective of this study is to investigate the effect of the susceptor blending mechanism on the co-pyrolysis product distribution. Graphite was mixed with feedstock in a new approach to achieving homogeneity, and microwave power of 600 W was used. The average heating rate (52–67 (°C/min)), microwave energy required (2267–2936 (J/g)), heat energy utilized (1410–1444 (J/g)), and conductive heat losses (85–110 (J/g)) were analyzed. The selectivity of cyclic alkanes and alkenes (65.5%) was found to be high in polypropylene pyrolysis oil. Polystyrene pyrolysis oil predominantly contained cyclooctatetraene (61%) compound. Bio-oil obtained from wheat straw predominantly contained aromatic hydrocarbons (85%), whereas rice husk oil also contains high selectivity aromatic hydrocarbons (37.8%) along with aliphatic hydrocarbons (54.9%). The co-pyrolysis oils has high selectivity of aromatics.