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Analysis of liquid products and mechanism of thermal/catalytic pyrolysis of HDPE

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Abstract

The experiments of rapid thermal pyrolysis and catalytic pyrolysis of high density polyethylene (HDPE) were carried out using Py-GC/MS. The distribution of products of rapid pyrolysis and the influence of Fluid Catalytic Cracking catalyst on pyrolysate production were studied both qualitatively and quantitatively at the temperature of 500 °C. The corresponding reaction paths were proposed based on the experimental results. The results demonstrated that olefin production accounts for more than 70 mass% in the products of C7–C40, and remaining products were alkanes, diolefins and aromatics. At the presence of catalyst, product contents of C7–C12 increased from 16.39 to 20.59 mass%, and C33+ from 11.23 to 14.42 mass%, while C13–C32 decreased from 72.22 to 61.45 mass%. The distinctive effects of catalyst on production of monoolefine and alkane were investigated, showing that the proportion of C7–C12 increased and C13–C32 decreased. For the production of diolefin (C7–C32), however, the inhibition of catalyst was found. The thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of HDPE can be reasonably explained using free radical mechanism and carbonium ion mechanism, respectively.

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Funding

This funding was provided by National Key Research and Development Program of china: high-value utilization technology and demonstration of urban organic solid waste, 2019YFC1906305, Jianhua Zhu.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Chemical Engineering and Environment, China University of Petroleum — Beijing, Beijing, 102249, People’s Republic of China

    Lu Yao & Jianhua Zhu

  2. College of Science, China University of Petroleum — Beijing, Beijing, 102249, People’s Republic of China

    Shuyuan Li, Yue Ma & Changtao Yue

Authors
  1. Lu Yao
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  2. Jianhua Zhu
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  3. Shuyuan Li
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  4. Yue Ma
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Contributions

The author contributions section is as follows: LY is the first author who designed the method, carried out the experiments, processed the data, analyzed the results, and wrote this paper. JZ is the corresponding author who funded this topic, and participated in the result analysis and paper revision process. SL participated in the whole process of method establishment, result analysis, and paper writing. YM provided constructive suggestions on analysis of reaction mechanism. And he revised this paper. CY is the other corresponding author who funded this topic. And he revised this paper.

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Correspondence to Jianhua Zhu.

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Yao, L., Zhu, J., Li, S. et al. Analysis of liquid products and mechanism of thermal/catalytic pyrolysis of HDPE. J Therm Anal Calorim 147, 14257–14266 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-022-11745-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10973-022-11745-2

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