Thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of waste brominated plastics

The pyrolysis of brominated high impact polystyrene, brominated acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, television housing, integrated circuit tray and personal computer front panel plastics were performed respectively in a two stage reactor at a degradation temperature of 570 QC and heating rate of 20 QC. Four catalysts were used during the pyrolysis; waste fluid catalytic cracking catalyst (FCC), a natural zeolite catalyst, two Y -zeolite catalysts (CB V 400 and CBV720) in order to increase the value of the pyrolysis products. The pyrolysis products were analysed by various analytical techniques. The thermogravimetric analysis of brominated high impact polystyrene, brominated acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene and television housing plastic showed a two stage degradation pattern while plastics from personal computer and integrated circuit tray showed a single step thermal degradation. On the TGA-FTIR the brominated high impact polystyrene, brominated acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and television housing plastic pyrolysed to form mono-substituted aromatics and aliphatic hydrocarbons, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. The pyrolysis investigation at 570QC showed that the oil yield was highest for the personal computer front panel plastic (85.37 wt %) and . '" ~ least for the television housing plastic (57.61 wt % oil). The natural zeolite catalyst increased the oil yield from all the plastics during pyrolysis. The gas yield was highest for the brominated acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene (2.71 wt %) and least for the brominated high impact polystyrene (0.92 wt %). The solid residue yield for the personal computer plastic and the brominated high impact polystyrene were low but that for brominated acrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene, television housing plastic and integrated circuit tray plastic were much higher. Each of the pyrolysis oils contained mainly aromatic compounds. With the exception of the brominated high impact polystyrene all the other pyrolysis oils contained phenols and benzenebutanenitrile. The catalysts did not remove all of the bromine completely from the pyrolysis degradation products.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo