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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 171 / Wednesday, September 8, 2021 / Proposed Rules
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TABLE 1SOURCE CATEGORIES INTERESTED IN THIS ACTIONContinued Source category
NAICS code 1

Examples of potentially regulated entities
Federal Government

622110, 541710, 928110

State/local/tribal Government

622110, 562213, 611310

Federal hospitals, other health care facilities, public health service, armed services.
State/local hospitals, other health care facilities, state/local waste disposal services, state universities.

1 North
American Industry Classification System.

This table is not intended to be exhaustive but rather provides a guide for readers regarding entities likely to be interested in this ANPRM and the EPAs evaluation of information or comments received in response. If you have any questions regarding whether the EPA is seeking input regarding a particular pyrolysis or gasification unit, contact the person listed in the preceding FOR
FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT section.
C. Where can I get a copy of this document and other related information?
In addition to being available in the docket, an electronic copy of this notice is available on the internet. Following signature by the EPA Administrator, the EPA will post a copy of this notice at https www.epa.gov/stationary-sourcesair-pollution/clean-air-act-guidelinesand-standards-waste-management.
Following publication in the Federal Register, the EPA will post the Federal Register version of this document and key technical documents at this same website.
II. Background
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A. What are pyrolysis and gasification units?
The CAA does not define pyrolysis or gasification. The EPA has treated pyrolysis and gasification differently under some CAA section 129 rules.
These rules apply to various categories of solid waste incineration units see discussion in section II.B of this preamble. Different types of pyrolysis and gasification units may be operating and used for different purposes or under different circumstances in the United States today. Pyrolysis units have been used for decades in the production of olefins such as ethylene and propylene, and similarly, gasification units have been used for many years in the production of fuel gas from coal.
However, over the past few years, there has been an increase in interest using pyrolysis or gasification units to convert different solid materials, such as agricultural wastes and plastics, into gaseous or liquid fuels or substances or materials to be used in the manufacture of products. Pyrolysis and gasification
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processes have been touted as potential methods to generate a circular economy 4 around plastics use, where a post-consumer plastic product can be recycled to produce a plastic of equal or similar quality again instead of being disposed of or downcycled to lesser quality products.5 Pyrolysis and gasification technologies have been used to convert solid and semi-solid materials, including solid waste e.g., municipal solid waste, commercial and industrial waste, hospital/medical/
infectious waste, sewage sludge, other solid waste, biomass, plastics, tires, and organic contaminants in soils and oily sludges to useful products such as energy, fuels and chemical commodities. Pyrolysis and gasification may have also been used simply to dispose of or reduce or decompose solid wastes. The products of pyrolysis or gasification vary based on whether the reaction is pyrolysis or gasification, the feedstock used, and the operating conditions of the reaction. In varying quantities and compositions, the products of pyrolysis and gasification are a mixture of: Syngas primarily in gasification, which produces a gaseous mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, with smaller quantities of methane, carbon dioxide, water, and other low-molecular-weight volatile organics; liquids typically oils or waxes of various kinds; char a solid residue also sometimes called biochar or coke containing fixed carbon and ash;
and any metals or minerals that might have been components of the feedstock.
In general, these products are used to create other products or are burned to generate energy e.g., syngas can be converted into heat, power, fuels, or chemical products, or used in fuel cells. In the United States, with a few exceptions, facilities currently using these pyrolysis and gasification 4 Circular economy is an emerging term based on, in part, the concept of eliminating waste and the continual use of resources. In this notice, this term applies to recycling post-consumer plastic materials into the basic chemical building blocks for producing another plastic item of similar or the same quality and value.
5 Downcycling is defined as recycling something in such a way that the resulting product is of a lower value than the original item MerriamWebster.

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technologies for these purposes are most often operating in a demonstration mode and do not have waste contracts and/or energy or product contracts in place that would indicate a full-scale commercial operation. Because most facilities are currently only demonstration or pilot-scale plants, they are likely operating in batch-test rather than in a continuous-mode that would be typical of commercial plants.
1. Pyrolysis Units Pyrolysis is a process where materials are thermally decomposed or rearranged under process conditions where extremely little to no oxygen is present.
Pyrolysis, which is also known as devolatilization, is an endothermic process 6 that produces 7590 percent volatile materials in the form of gaseous and liquid hydrocarbons.7 Remaining non-volatile materials with high carbon content form a product called char.8
Pyrolysis relies on intensive heat energy and does not require the presence of oxygen. Pyrolysis units may be used to crack or chemically decompose organic materials. Pyrolysis technology vendors use different variations of, and names for, pyrolysis units, including: 9
1 Thermal pyrolysis/cracking where feedstock is heated at high temperatures 350900 degrees Celsius C in the absence of a catalyst; 2 catalytic pyrolysis/cracking where the feedstock is processed using a catalyst; and 3
hydrocracking sometimes referred to as hydrogenation where the feedstock is reacted with hydrogen and a catalyst under moderate temperatures and pressures e.g., 150400 C and 30100
bar hydrogen. Regardless of the process category, through application of heat, pyrolysis disintegrates the long 6 Endothermic is a process where heat is absorbed by a chemical reaction, thus resulting in decreased temperature.
7 Benchmarking Biomass Gasification Technologies for Fuels, Chemicals and Hydrogen Production, Prepared for U.S. Department of Energy, National Energy for Technology Laboratory, by Jared P. Ciferno and John J. Marano, 2002.
8 Ibid.
9 State of Practice for Emerging Waste Conversion Technologies. Prepared for U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development. EPA 600/R12/705. October 2012.
https cfpub.epa.gov/si/si_public_record_
report.cfm?Lab=NRMRL&dirEntryId=305250.

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