Abstract
Recycling wood/plastic composites in municipal and industrial wastes currently represents a challenge which needs to be overcome. In this work, we considered the concept of independent pyrolysis of wood and plastic in wood/plastic mixtures for enabling a versatile catalytic process design which is capable of producing recoverable final products from both components. In order to reveal the influence of plastic on wood pyrolysis, the pyrolysis of beech wood (BW, wood material) in a polyethylene (PE) melt (polyolefin material) was performed at 350 °C. The combined use of thermogravimetric analysis, product recovery studies, in situ radical characterisations, and microscopic analysis revealed the influence of the PE melt on the BW pyrolysis. More specifically, a physical prevention of the intermolecular condensation and hydrogen abstraction from PE pyrolysates in the liquid/solid phase was observed. These interactions enhanced the production of levoglucosan and methoxyphenols by factors of 1.7 and 1.4, respectively, during the BW pyrolysis in the PE melt. Based on these results, we concluded that the observed synergistic effects could potentially control the yield and quality of useful products, as well as the utilisation of mixed wood/plastic wastes, which cannot be effectively recycled otherwise.
Highlights
Pyrolysis achieves chemical bond cleavage in polymeric materials by the action of heat alone, exhibiting a distinct advantage over selective solvolysis-induced depolymerisation, as it is applicable to material mixtures which cannot be separated
The synergistic effects in wood/plastic co-pyrolysis and the catalytic conversion of the corresponding pyrolysates have been widely researched, with the former helping to control the reaction and product selectivity and providing the desired products for subsequent catalytic processes, and the latter being important for maximizing the yield and quality of the final products
We considered the concept of the independent pyrolysis of wood and plastic in wood/ plastic mixtures (Fig. 1)
Summary
Shogo Kumagai 1, Kohei Fujita1,Yusuke Takahashi1,Yumi Nakai[2], Tomohito Kameda[1], Yuko Saito1 & Toshiaki Yoshioka[1]. The independent pyrolysis of wood and plastic could theoretically be realised by temperature control, allowing for the selective generation of wood-derived oxygen-containing compounds and olefinic polymer-derived aliphatic compounds in different temperature ranges This approach expands the versatility of catalytic process design and broadens the scope of the final products, enabling the use of different catalysts and conditions for wood and plastic pyrolysis[34,35,36,37]. An electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometer featuring a novel heating unit (Fig. 2) was utilised to characterise the in situ radical behaviour
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