Controlled Air Oxidation of Plastic and Biomass in a Packed‐Bed Reactor

Abstract

A packed-bed reactor was established to study the effect of polypropylene (PP) content on the controlled air oxidation performance of a mixture of PP and sawdust (SD) at a fixed feed gas flow rate. Attention was focused on product yields, evolutionary behavior of the gas flow rate, and gas compositions. A higher PP content led to increased gas yield, lower solid yield, and substantially reduced liquid yield. The PP content significantly affected the gas composition and rate of gas production. Mixtures of plastic and biomass can be radically converted to gaseous and liquid products under controlled air oxidation conditions.

Particle Agglomeration of Biomass and Plastic Waste during Their Thermochemical Fixed-Bed Conversion

“…In some cases, agglomeration does not occur even with a high fraction of plastic. For example, the authors of [133] did not report any problems with bed agglomeration (even with a plastic fraction of 80%) during the fixed-bed co-gasification of sawdust and polypropylene (instead of air, a gas mixture with an oxygen concentration of 10% was used). The authors of [134] used a horizontal reactor for steam gasification of wood chips and polyethylene mixtures, which allowed for avoiding bed blockage.…”

Pyrolysis of Fiber-Plastic Waste Blends

“…Williams et al [42] investigated yield and composition of co-pyrolysis of oil from fiber-polysterene in a fixed bed reactor using catalyst and found a decrease in the oil and significant increase in the formation of coke. Meng et al [43] studied co-pyrolysis of polypropylene and sawdust in a packed bed reactor to understand the effect of temperature on yields and found a negative synergistic effect in co-pyrolysis. According to Xue [44], possible explanation for some of these negative synergistic effects is that the plastic decomposes at a higher temperature than biomass but melts at around 300ºC which is approximately the decomposition temperature for biomass.…”