Low temperature upcycling of polyethylene to gasoline range chemicals: Hydrogen transfer and heat compensation to endothermic pyrolysis reaction over zeolites

Jiang, Changle; Wang, Yuxin; Luong, Thang; Robinson, Brandon; Liu, Wei; Hu, Jianli

doi:10.1016/j.jece.2022.107492

Title: Low temperature upcycling of polyethylene to gasoline range chemicals: Hydrogen transfer and heat compensation to endothermic pyrolysis reaction over zeolites

Journal Article · 02 March 2022 · Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering (Online)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jece.2022.107492 · OSTI ID:1977293

Jiang, Changle ^[1]; Wang, Yuxin ^[2]; Luong, Thang ^[2]; Robinson, Brandon ^[2]; Liu, Wei ^[3]; Hu, Jianli ^[2]

West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV (United States); OSTI
West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV (United States)
Molecule Works Incorporated, Richland, WA (United States)

Selective production of gasoline ranged chemicals were of great interest in the field of plastic upcycling. Here this work reports exothermic hydrogen transfer reaction which was observed when HY zeolite was adopted to catalytic pyrolyze the polyethylene to gasoline ranged chemicals, while it was not observed when H-ZSM5 was used as catalyst. Both zeolite catalysts could significantly bring down the reaction temperature from 500 to 300–350 °C. TG-FITR analysis revealed that products obtained with HY zeolites were dominated with saturated hydrocarbons as compared to H-ZSM5 where the combination of alkanes, alkenes, and aromatics was obtained. In addition to the formation of saturated compounds, the TG-DSC analysis confirmed that, over the HY zeolites, the endothermic hydrogen transfer reaction of olefins occurred along with the pyrolysis of LDPE visibly when the zeolite ratio in the zeolite/polyethylene mixture exceeded 50% by mass. The TG results also indicated that the polyethylene undergone nearly 100% converted with very few residues. Further product analysis from batch pyrolysis by GC-MS confirmed that gasoline ranged iso-alkanes were produced over HY zeolite. This study highlighted that coupling exothermic hydrogen transfer reactions with endothermic pyrolysis could be an energy-efficient way of producing gasoline ranged chemicals. Chemical upcycling of plastics is tunable by using different zeolite combinations for the formation of desired products.

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Research Organization:: Molecule Works Incorporated, Richland, WA (United States); West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC); West Virginia University

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0020787

OSTI ID:: 1977293

Journal Information:: Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering (Online), Journal Name: Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering (Online) Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 10; ISSN 2213-3437

Publisher:: ElsevierCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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37 INORGANIC, ORGANIC, PHYSICAL, AND ANALYTICAL CHEMISTRY
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