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Lookup NU author(s): Gerardo Martinez Narro, Professor Anh Phan
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
© 2023 The study of plastic waste thermal decomposition and kinetics is a crucial step for optimal reactor design and the scale-up of pyrolysis technologies for chemical recycling. Kinetic parameters of individual and mixed plastic waste samples that resemble the main components of plastic waste streams (polyolefins and polyesters) were determined in this study using thermogravimetric analysis. Strong dependencies of activation energy on conversion were found for the mixtures, indicating that the process occurs in multiple steps and there are strong interactions between plastic components, lowering their activation energy during the decomposition. PP and LDPE decomposed via two separate steps whereas others decomposed via a single step process. For plastic mixtures, three dominant partially overlapping steps were identified. Kinetic deconvolution analysis improved model accuracy of mixtures and enabled the study of kinetic contributions and behaviour of individual steps. The models were then applied to predict experimental data at various heating conditions and plastic compositions.
Author(s): Martinez-Narro G, Royston NJ, Billsborough KL, Phan AN
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Chemical Thermodynamics and Thermal Analysis
Year: 2023
Volume: 9
Print publication date: 01/03/2023
Online publication date: 04/01/2023
Acceptance date: 03/01/2023
Date deposited: 14/03/2023
ISSN (electronic): 2667-3126
Publisher: Elsevier B.V.
URL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ctta.2023.100105
DOI: 10.1016/j.ctta.2023.100105
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