Improper disposal of the increasingly produced end-of-life plastics in lands and water bodies created significant economic and environmental burdens for our society. When recycled, waste plastics can be an excellent source of energy, chemicals and materials. However, the most crucial aspect of recycling is the needs for developing technically and economically effective recycling technology. Pyrolytic is the most studied technology for chemical recycling of plastics as it can deconstruct polymers into building block chemicals using moderately high temperatures in the absence of solvents. Although extensively investigated in previous studies, the results obtained by pyrolyzing different types of plastic polymers using different types of reactors are often difficult to compare due to the lack of systematic studies that correlate the feedstock and reactor conditions with the product distributions. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of plastic pyrolysis relevant to physiochemistry of the feedstock and reaction conditions that lead to product formation is critical in order to tailor the reactor design and/or pyrolysis process to improve plastic conversion. For example, while continuous pyrolysis reactors are desired for commercial scale productions, the heating rate can be higher and reaction time is much shorter in these reactors compared to pyrolyzing plastics in batch reactors. Thus, understanding how increased heating rates and reduced reaction times affect polymer deconstruction and product upgrading will be important in tuning the pyrolysis process. In our study, kinetics of plastics was compared for fast pyrolysis condition and slow pyrolysis condition to determine the effects of heating rate condition and plastic type on activation energy of plastics pyrolysis. In addition to investigating mass transfer limitation issue with fast pyrolysis of plastics, time-resolved fast pyrolysis and catalytic upgrading were also investigated to understand the underlying reactions and product formation.

Pyrolysis of waste plastics for chemical upcycling

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.