Treatment Concepts for Plastic Recycling
Problem
Over the last 70 years plastic production and therefore plastic product disposal has increased to the point where it is now a worldwide pollution problem. With about 400 million tons of plastic being produced each year, the health of the earth’s ecosystem is being pushed to its limit.
Even with municipal plastic recycling programs, landfills and oceans are being stressed. Plastic waste entering the oceans is about 13 million tons each year and it is expected to increase tenfold by 2025. The plastic never goes away but breaks down into small fragments known as microplastics which are being found in fish consumed by humans as well as seabirds. It is estimated that it takes 450 years for plastic to decompose. It is clear that an urgent crisis exists, and one that is not going to resolve itself.
One modern method now being considered to convert plastic waste into useable energy is by processing through pyrolysis oils routes. Requirements and unmet needs for industrial scale specialty adsorbents / purification products are being defined, but their cost/benefit is yet largely unproven.
Solution
An effort is now in place for converting plastic waste through a process known as pyrolysis. The pyrolysis process breaks down the waste materials by heating them without oxygen. The plastic chemicals decompose into useable gases. Then, a method known as biomass gasification converts the biomass into hydrogen with the help of heat and steam. The end result is a reusable crude oil which can be used as fuel or for feedstock for the manufacture of new plastic products.
Target-specific adsorbents are a necessary component in the industrial scale process. In the illustration below we present our concepts for several purification sorbents that will be useful for pyrolysis oils purifications made from plastic waste materials.
Types of possible sorbent modifications available for plastics recycling applications
Size
Shape
Crystallinity
Porosity
Surface Area
Thermal stability
Acid/Basic Chemistry – Lewis & Bronsted
Surface Charge
Activity
Selectivity
Sorbent Technologies is committed to developing and optimizing sorbent materials for plastic recycling and in generating an application database for this purpose.
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