Catalytic Upgrading of Pyrolysis Wax Oil Obtained from Waxed Corrugated Cardboard Using Zeolite Y Catalyst

Abstract

About 5% of all corrugated cardboard is coated with wax to enhance performance under humid conditions. Waxed cardboard is unrecyclable. The authors have previously shown that the wax can be effectively recovered using pyrolysis. The main compounds found in wax oil obtained from pyrolysis of waxed cardboard were alkanes, alkenes, and dienes (C 9 to C 36 ). In this work, recovered wax and wax oil samples were thermally and catalytically pyrolyzed on a custom-made small tubular batch reactor, and the resultant liquid products were analyzed (GCMS, FTIR, and ESI-MS) against gasoline to evaluate their performance as a transport fuel. The products of thermal pyrolysis of the samples are mainly composed of dienes and short-chain olefins, oxygenated compounds, and minor amounts of aromatic compounds. Their functional groups resembled those found in paraffin. The analyses revealed that the liquid products of catalytic pyrolysis had chemical and functional group profiles similar to gasoline (e.g., methylbenzenes). The addition of zeolite Y as the catalyst facilitated the conversion of long-chain hydrocarbons to short-chain alkanes and aromatics. The monomer-to-oligomer ratio of the liquid products also increased significantly after catalytic pyrolysis.

Upgrading Mixed Agricultural Plastic and Lignocellulosic Waste to Liquid Fuels by Catalytic Pyrolysis

“…The catalyst remained effective, and the product yields from experiments using recovered catalyst remained comparable to those from the initial experiment using new catalyst. The product yields were within the reported range given in the literature [66].…”

“…There were also aliphatic oxygenated organic molecules, phenol, furan derivatives, and aromatic compounds. Py-GC-MS results for NW, T1, and T2 samples indicated the presence of PE and PP degradation products such as alkanes and alkenes from C 3 to C 35 , suggesting a high potential for conversion to fuel [65,66].…”

“…During thermal and catalytic pyrolysis, as temperature increases, the M n decreases by an average of 7% (thermal) and 15% (catalytic) in BMP and 8% (thermal) and 9% (catalytic) in CMP. Thermal degradation and sample reactions with the catalyst led to the drop in average molar mass [66]. Ion intensities were used to estimate the composition of monomer (m/z 100-300) to oligomer (m/z 301-2000) compounds (Table 6).…”

Adsorption decolorization and composition analysis of high melting point Fischer–Tropsch waxes

“…The bands around 2920 and 2850 cm −1 in all samples correspond to methylene CH 2 symmetric and asymmetric stretch vibrations, respectively. The vibration band around 1470 and 1460 cm −1 can be attributed to the asymmetric scissoring of methylene CH 2 and methyl CH 3 , respectively 33–36 . These bands of 1377 cm −1 present in all samples are assigned to asymmetric scissoring vibration of methyl CH 3 .…”

Virtual Special Issue of Recent Advances in Biomass and Wastes Thermochemical Processing

“…■ CATALYTIC UPGRADING/REFINING Six papers are included on this topic. Sotoudenia et al 8 studied the recovery of the wax contained in carboard via pyrolysis and the catalytic upgrading on a small tubular batch reactor. The liquids produced were analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (ESI−MS).…”