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
SN - 2227-9717
VL - 9.2021
SP - 1
EP - 15
JO - Processes : open access journal
JF - Processes : open access journal
IS - 1
ER -