Production of Pyrolysis Oil with Low Bromine and Antimony Contents from Plastic Material Containing Brominated Flame Retardants and Antimony Trioxide

Abstract

Thermal degradation of high impact polystyrene (HIPS) containing brominated flame retardants and antimony trioxide (Sb2O3) was conducted at different temperatures with the presence of various additives (red mud, limestone and natural zeolite) in a fixed-bed reactor. The effect of the pyrolysis temperature on the product yield and the bromine content in the oil product was investigated. It was found that the maximum oil yield (84.38 wt.%) was obtained at the pyrolysis temperature of 500 ?. The pyrolysis temperature had no significant impact on the bromine reduction in the oil products. The bromine in the flame retardant was mainly transferred into the oil products, where the bromine content was in the range of 7.96-8.56 wt.%. With the aim of removing bromine and antimony from the oils, three additives (red mud, limestone and natural zeolite) was used to investigate the influence on the product yield and composition, especially on the bromine and antimony removal ability from the oil products. In this study, it was found that all of the additives could significantly lower the bromine and antimony content in the oils and the red mud was the most effective. The presence of red mud could reduce the bromine and antimony content from 8.21 and 1.84 wt.% when no additive was employed to 0.84 and 0.35 wt.%, respectively. In addition, the distribution and fate of bromine and antimony in the residues were also studied by the SEM-EDX and XRD analysis in detail.