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Conversion of polyethylene to gasoline: Influence of porosity and acidity of zeolites

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Abstract

Plastic waste is causing serious environmental problems. Developing efficient, cheap and stable catalytic routes to convert plastic waste into valuable products is of great importance for sustainable development, but remains to be a challenging task. Zeolites are cheap and stable, but they are usually not efficient for plastic conversion at a low temperature. Herein a series of microporous and mesoporous zeolites were used to study the influence of porosity and acidity of zeolite on catalytic activity for plastics conversion. It was observed that H-Beta zeolite was an efficient catalyst for cracking high-density polyethylene to gasoline at 240 °C, and the products were almost C4-C12 alkanes. The effect of porosity and acidity on catalytic performance of zeolites was evaluated, which clearly visualized the good performance of H-Beta due to high surface area, large channel system, large amount accessible acidic sites. This study provides very useful information for designing zeolites for efficient conversion of plastics.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 22293015, 22293012, and 22121002) and the Research Funds of Happiness Flower ECNU (2323ST2239).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, 200062, China

    Chunyu Li, Haihong Wu, Wanying Han, Xinrui Zheng, Jianxin Zhai, Jiao Xu, Mingyuan He & Buxing Han

  2. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, CAS Laboratory of Colloid and Interface and Thermodynamics, CAS Research/Education Center for Excellence in Molecular Sciences, Center for Carbon Neutral Chemistry, Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Ziyu Cen, Longfei Lin & Buxing Han

  3. School of Chemical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Ziyu Cen

  4. Institute of Eco-Chongming, Shanghai, 202162, China

    Buxing Han

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  1. Chunyu Li
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  2. Haihong Wu
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Correspondence to Haihong Wu, Longfei Lin, Mingyuan He or Buxing Han.

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Li, C., Wu, H., Cen, Z. et al. Conversion of polyethylene to gasoline: Influence of porosity and acidity of zeolites. Front. Energy 17, 763–774 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-023-0897-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11708-023-0897-1

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