Research progress on catalytic pyrolysis and reuse of waste plastics and petroleum sludge

Abstract

Waste plastics (e.g., polyethylene, polyvinyl chloride, polypropylene, polystyrene) and petroleum sludge (i.e., main residual from the petroleum industry) pose a severe threat to the environment and human health. These materials are basically nonbiodegradable, and it is difficult to realize the recycling of them and resources via traditional treatment methods. Catalytic pyrolysis as a new recycling treatment method has the characteristics of high efficiency, environmentally benign, no secondary pollution and high product utilization value. This paper mainly reviews the research progress of catalysts used in the catalytic pyrolysis of waste plastics and petroleum sludge. They include molecular sieves, transition metals, metal oxides, clays and activated carbons used for the recycling of plastic, and molecular sieves and M-series catalyst (M=Al, Fe, Ca, Na, K) for treating petroleum sludge. The mechanism of catalytic pyrolysis is also elucidated in this paper. In addition, the challenges faced by catalytic pyrolysis of waste polymers and the future development prospects are also presented.

Experimental investigation on the flexural response of epoxy composites filled with environmental pollutant crump rubber

“…Waste tire rubber in particular has gained a significant research interest owing to the abundant availability. Furthermore, the land fill burden and disposal issues concerning waste tire rubber has made the researchers all around the globe to look for feasible ways to tackle the problems [25][26][27][28][29]. Tires used for automobiles and airplanes are disposed after attaining their life cycle and thus heaps of tires are piled up creating abundant disposal issues [30].…”

Integrating Nanomaterial and High‐Performance Fuzzy‐Based Machine Learning Approach for Green Energy Conversion

“…Catalytic pyrolysis is a potential technology for improving biomass-based materials into liquid fuel and other value-added products [23]. Use of nanobased catalysts enhances the pyrolysis process with lower activation energy by lowering the lowering pyrolysis temperature [24]. In catalytic process, the catalyst and feedstock materials are mixed together and kept inside the reactor for catalytic reforming and cracking.…”

Upcycling by grafting onto semi‐crystalline polymers using supercritical CO2

“…For example, grinding and remelting of plastic causes degradation, reducing the quality and therefore value of the material compared to the unused product. Additionally, sorting of plastic waste is a tedious, time‐consuming prerequisite that is required due to the incompatibility of waste streams 3,4 . Hence, there is need to develop new strategies for polymer upcycling to compatibilize immiscible waste streams as well as add value to widely used plastics 5 .…”

“…Additionally, sorting of plastic waste is a tedious, time-consuming prerequisite that is required due to the incompatibility of waste streams. 3,4 Hence, there is need to develop new strategies for polymer upcycling to compatibilize immiscible waste streams as well as add value to widely used plastics. 5 It is therefore necessary to economically generate compatibilizers from commodity and engineering plastics for next generation polymer blends, alloys, and composites.…”