Thermogravimetric characteristic and kinetic of catalytic co-pyrolysis of biomass with low- and high-density polyethylenes

Abstract

The pyrolysis of wood fuel (WF) and polyethylenes (low-density polyethylene; LDPE and high-density polyethylene; HDPE) in a non-catalytic and catalytic co-pyrolysis over zeolite catalyst (ZSM-5) were studied via a thermogravimetric analysis. The result obtained for the biomass with LDPE and HDPE blends shows that the peak temperature decreases significantly only at blends with catalyst as compared to the peak temperature of isolated LDPE and HDPE materials. The peak temperature of WF/LDPE/ZSM-5 (390 °C) was lower than that of WF/HDPE/ZSM-5 (480 °C). The weight loss differences between experimental and theoretical values were greater than 1% at temperature higher than 500 °C in the various admixtures which depicts the occurrence of chemical interactions between the blends. After catalysts were added to the blend, the fuels became more reactive to thermal degradation. The results of the non-catalytic pyrolysis kinetics revealed activation energy values of 54.09 and 95.90 KJ/mol for WF/LDPE and WF/HDPE, respectively. However, with the presence of ZSM-5 activation, energy falls to 24.13 and 50.45 for WF/LDPE/ZSM-5 and WF/HDPE/ZSM-5, respectively. The findings in this work show that the kinetic of catalytic co-pyrolysis of biomass with plastic can be viewed as a potential thermochemical conversion method that can be effectively utilized for a marked reduction in energy requirement of the process.