The effect of different particle sizes and HCl-modified kaolin on catalytic pyrolysis characteristics of reworked polypropylene plastics

Wei Luo, Qing Hu, Zhong-yi Fan, Jun Wan, Qian He, Sheng-xiong Huang, Nan Zhou, Min Song, Jia-chao Zhang and Zhi Zhou

Energy, 2020, vol. 213, issue C

Abstract: At present, the catalysts used to produce high value products by catalytic pyrolysis of high calorific value waste plastics are expensive. In this study, the catalytic pyrolysis characteristics of reworked polypropylene (PP) plastics were studied by using low-cost kaolin with different particle sizes and HCl-modified kaolin. The results show that the catalysts reduced the condensate oil yield and increased the gas yield. C6–C20 was the major components of condensate oil ranging from 90% to 97% in catalyst pyrolysis by significantly decreasing the heavy components (above C20). Kaolin has high cracking efficiency of heavy components into alkanes and alkenes (the range of diesel components). The stronger acid sites on the modified kaolin further promoted the secondary cracking of diesel components, resulting in a great increase in the C6–C11 content. Moreover, HCl-modified kaolin significantly increased the aromaticity of the condensate oil because of the aromatization and Diels-Alder reaction of alkanes and alkenes. Meanwhile, kaolin significantly increased the yield of H2, and the H2 yield was increased with the decrease of kaolin particle size. HCl-modified kaolin further promoted the yield and quality of gas. It is found that kaolin is a potential cheap and efficient pyrolysis catalyst.

Keywords: Catalytic pyrolysis; Kaolin; HCl-Modified; Particle sizes; Polypropylene plastic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544220321873
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:energy:v:213:y:2020:i:c:s0360544220321873

DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2020.119080

Access Statistics for this article

Energy is currently edited by Henrik Lund and Mark J. Kaiser

More articles in Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().