Design and Fabrication of Microwave Pyrolysis System

This paper focuses on the design and fabrication of a microwave system for plastic pyrolysis. The microwave system used is a modified domestic microwave oven with a maximum power of 1,000 watt, single feed and 2.45 GHz frequency. Simulation was done to be able to study the field distribution inside the cavity. Distributions of electric field strength (E), dissipated power inside the oven cavity, skin-depth of electromagnetic waves in charcoal media, and mode generation were investigated to determine the dimension of the reactor and the best position for the reactor to be placed inside the cavity in order to get better heating generation. It was found that the dissipated power for the whole cavity was uneven. Skin-depth should be from 19.2 to 19.657 mm. The reactor should be of a diameter less than 19.2 mm and placed in the high-power density regions inside the cavity. A preliminary study was carried out using polypropylene (PP), Low-Density Polyethylene (LDPE) resins and charcoal as microwave absorber at 460-510degC