Enhancement of liquid/gas production during co-pyrolysis of vacuum residue and plastics due to synergistic interactions

Abstract

Vacuum residue (VR) was copyrolysed with polyethylene (PE) or polystyrene (PS) in a batch reactor to investigate the corresponding synergistic pyrolytic interactions. The synergistic interactions between VR and plastic pyrolysates enhanced liquid and gas production while reducing coke formation, as compared with VR-only and plastic-only pyrolysis. The pyrolysis of 9:1 w/w VR: PE3M (PE with Mw = 3 MDa) and 9:1 w/w VR/PS350K (PS with Mw ≈ 350 kDa) mixtures produced oil in yields of 28.6 and 38.4 wt%, respectively, which exceeded those expected in the absence of synergistic interactions 1.12- and 1.29-fold, respectively. The corresponding coke yields were ~ 0.9 times lower than those expected in the absence of synergistic interactions. Moreover, copyrolysis synergistically increased the yields of oil-phase paraffins and olefins while decreasing that of aromatic compounds and was therefore concluded to enable effective VR utilisation and plastic recycling by enhancing liquid and gas production.