TY - JOUR

T1 - Lumped Kinetic Modeling of Polypropylene and Polyethylene Co-Pyrolysis in Tubular Reactors

AU - Lechleitner, Andreas

AU - Schubert, Teresa

AU - Hofer, Wolfgang

AU - Lehner, Markus

PY - 2020/12/25

Y1 - 2020/12/25

N2 - The recycling rates, especially those from plastic packaging waste, have to be increased according to the European Union directive in the next years. Besides many other technologies, the pyrolysis of plastic wastes seems to be an efficient supplementary opportunity to treat mixed and unpurified plastic streams. For this reason, a pyrolysis process was developed for the chemical recycling of hydrocarbons from waste polyolefins. The obtained products can be further processed and upgraded in crude oil refineries, so that also monomers can be recovered, which are used for the plastic polymerization again. However, to achieve a scale up to a demo plant, a kinetic model for predicting the yields of the plastic pyrolysis in a tubular reactor is needed. For this reason, a pilot plant was built, in which different plastics and carrier fluids can be tested. Based on the data generated at the pilot plant, a very practical and suitable model was found to describe the plastic co-pyrolysis of the carrier fluid with polypropylene (PP) and low density and high density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE), respectively. The physical and chemical mechanisms of the co-pyrolysis in the tubular reactor are successfully investigated.

AB - The recycling rates, especially those from plastic packaging waste, have to be increased according to the European Union directive in the next years. Besides many other technologies, the pyrolysis of plastic wastes seems to be an efficient supplementary opportunity to treat mixed and unpurified plastic streams. For this reason, a pyrolysis process was developed for the chemical recycling of hydrocarbons from waste polyolefins. The obtained products can be further processed and upgraded in crude oil refineries, so that also monomers can be recovered, which are used for the plastic polymerization again. However, to achieve a scale up to a demo plant, a kinetic model for predicting the yields of the plastic pyrolysis in a tubular reactor is needed. For this reason, a pilot plant was built, in which different plastics and carrier fluids can be tested. Based on the data generated at the pilot plant, a very practical and suitable model was found to describe the plastic co-pyrolysis of the carrier fluid with polypropylene (PP) and low density and high density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE), respectively. The physical and chemical mechanisms of the co-pyrolysis in the tubular reactor are successfully investigated.

KW - Feedstock recycling

KW - plastic pyrolysis

KW - lumped model

KW - kinetic models

KW - ReOil

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85098865487&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9010034

DO - https://doi.org/10.3390/pr9010034

M3 - Article

VL - 9.2021

SP - 1

EP - 15

JO - Processes : open access journal

JF - Processes : open access journal

SN - 2227-9717

IS - 1

ER -