Studies on synergism in the cracking and co-cracking of Jatropha oil, vacuum residue and high density polyethylene: Kinetic analysis

Attempts have been made to understand the non-isothermal kinetics of cracking of Jatropha oil (JO), vacuum residue (VR) and high density polyethylene (HDPE) and their combined co-cracking using different heating rates of 5 K min− 1, 10 K min− 1, 15 K min− 1 and 20 K min− 1 under the nitrogen (N2) atmosphere. The Flynn–Wall–Ozawa and Kissinger–Akahira–Sunose (KAS) models were employed to study the kinetic analysis of the samples. To evaluate the exponential factor the model fitting of Coats –Redfern approach was used. The distribution of the activation energy for these entire combined reaction scheme has been discussed. Authors have reported that the non-isothermal kinetic studies of the co-cracking of JO + VR and VR + HDPE show the existence of synergism in their co-cracking reactions, however JO + HDPE co-cracking shows interaction among the reactive cracked intermediates of JO and HDPE.