scholarly journals Pyrolysis of Polystyrene Waste: A Review

Polymers ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 225
Author(s):  
Ibrahim M. Maafa

The manufacturing of polystyrene around the globe has escalated in the past years due to its huge applications in various areas. The perpetual market needs of polystyrene led the polystyrene wastes accretion in the landfill causing environmental deterioration. The soaring need for polystyrene also led to the exhaustion of petroleum, a non-renewable energy source, as polystyrene is a petroleum-derived product. Researchers from around the world have discovered a few techniques to take care of the polystyrene scraps, namely recycling and energy recovery techniques. Nevertheless, there are demerits involved with recycling techniques, such as they call for huge labor expenses in the separation process and cause water pollution, thereby decreasing the process sustainability. Owing to these demerits, the researchers have focused their attention on the energy recovery technique. Since petroleum is the main ingredient of polystyrene synthesis, the restoration of liquid oil from polystyrene via the pyrolysis method is a promising technique as the recovered oil has greater calorific value as compared to commercially available fuel. The present paper surveys the pyrolysis technique for polystyrene and the important process parameters that control the end product, like oil, gas, and char. The chief process parameters that are discussed in this review paper include the type of reactors, temperature, residence time, pressure, catalyst types, type of fluidizing gases, and their flow rate. A more recent technique of utilizing a solvent to perform pyrolysis and the effect of various process conditions on the product yield have been discussed. Apart from this, various outlooks to optimize the liquid oil recovery from polystyrene are also reviewed.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 43-48
Author(s):  
Shalu Patel ◽  
Shalu Patel ◽  
Savita Dixit ◽  
Kavita Gidwani Suneja ◽  
Nilesh Tipan

Polystyrene usage has risen significantly in recent years as a result of its wide variety of applications. The persistent consumer demand for polystyrene resulted in the accumulation of polystyrene waste in landfills, inducing environmental degradation. Since polystyrene is a petroleum-derived material, the increasing demand for it resulted in the depletion of petroleum, a non-renewable energy source. Research teams from all over the world have invented many methods for dealing with polystyrene waste, including recycling and energy regeneration. However, there are drawbacks to recycling methods, such as the fact that they need a lot of manpower in the separating procedure and pollute the water, reducing the process's sustainability. Because of these flaws, the experimenters have cantered their efforts on the energy harvesting approach. As petroleum is the primary component of polystyrene, the pyrolysis process for recovering fuel oil from polystyrene is an useful technology because the retrieved oil has a higher calorific value than commercially available gasoline. The current paper discusses polystyrene conversion technologies as well as the pyrolysis techniques for polystyrene, which generates end products such as oil, gas, and char. The impact of different processing parameters on the product yield has been addressed using more advanced techniques of conducting pyrolysis with a solvent.


BioResources ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (3) ◽  
pp. 4947-4962
Author(s):  
Jin Yan ◽  
Jianan Liu ◽  
Liqiang Zhang ◽  
Zhili Tan ◽  
Haoran Zhang ◽  
...  

The influence of the process parameters on the mechanical properties of compact wood powder generated via hot-pressing was analyzed through a single-factor experiment. The mechanical properties exhibited a nonlinear trend relative to the process conditions of hot-pressed compact wood powder. The relationship models between the process parameters and the mechanical properties for the compact wood powder were established by applying a multiple regression analysis and neural network methods combined with data from an orthogonal array design. A comparison between experimental and predicted results was made to investigate the accuracy of the established models by applying several data groups among the single-factor experiments. The results showed that the accuracy of the neural network model in terms of predicting the mechanical properties was greater compared with the multiple regression model. This demonstrates that the established neural network model had a better prediction performance, and it can accurately map the relationship between the process conditions and the mechanical properties of the compact wood powder.


2021 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 423-434
Author(s):  
F. Schulte-Hubbert ◽  
D. Drummer ◽  
L. Hoffmann

Abstract The underlying process for the production of textile reinforced thermoplastics is the impregnation of dry textile reinforcements with a thermoplastic matrix. The process parameters such as temperature, time and pressure of the impregnation are mainly determined by the permeability of the reinforcement. This results from a complex interaction of hydrodynamic compaction and relaxation behavior caused by textile and process parameters. The foundation for the description and optimization of impregnation progresses is therefore the determination of the pressure-dependent permeability of fibre textiles. Previous experimental investigations have shown that the dynamic compaction behavior during the impregnation of fibre reinforcements with thermoplastics or thermosets can be successfully characterized. However, for most cases, an analytical representation has not been possible due to the complexity of the process. Although it may be possible to reproduce this behavior by numerical calculations, the results need to be confirmed by experiments. This paper lays the analytical foundation for building a scaled model system, based on the theory of similarity, to observe, measure, and evaluate the dynamic compaction behavior of textile reinforcements under controlled process conditions.


Author(s):  
R Sarrafi ◽  
D Lin ◽  
R Kovacevic

Online observation is expected to provide a better understanding of the cathodic cleaning of oxides from the molten pool during variable-polarity gas tungsten arc welding (VP GTAW) of aluminium alloys. In this paper, a machine-vision system with appropriate illumination and filtering is used to monitor in real time the effect of different process parameters on the cleaning of oxides from the molten pool during VP GTAW of Al 6061. Based on the observations, the process conditions under which a clean molten pool can be achieved are determined. In addition, the control of the welding process to maintain the consistency of cathodic cleaning is discussed. The results showed that in order to have an oxide-free molten pool, the solid surface in front of the molten pool should be cleaned from oxides by the electric arc. The choice of process parameters to satisfy this condition has been discussed. It was found that the percentage of direct current electrode positive (DCEP) polarity in the cycle of current has the highest impact on the cathodic cleaning, with the arc current having less influence, and the welding speed showing the least effect. Furthermore, in order to keep the consistency of oxide cleaning, process parameters should be set or controlled to maintain the cleaned zone larger than the molten pool.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 539-544
Author(s):  
Tomasz Rydzkowski ◽  
Iwona Michalska-Pożoga ◽  
Marcin Szczepanek ◽  
Vijay Kumar Thakur

Abstract The search for new polymer processing ways has become necessary due to the rapidly growing technology and market needs. The time of manufacturing products, as well as the impact of process parameters and the design itself on the properties of materials have become very important. Therefore, the creation of assumptions allowing the construction of a compact device whose construction will allow, for example, high process efficiency at low screw rotational speeds or a high degree of material homogenisation, is expected by the market. However, this requires the design of new or continuous modifications and improvements to existing structures.


2012 ◽  
Vol 134 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
K. Suresh Kumar Reddy ◽  
Pravin Kannan ◽  
Ahmed Al Shoaibi ◽  
C. Srinivasakannan

The present work is an attempt to compile and analyze the most recent literature pertaining to thermal pyrolysis of plastic waste using fluidized bed reactors. The review is short owing to the small number of work reported in the open literature in particular to the fluidized beds. Although works on pyrolysis are reported in fixed beds, autoclaves, and fluidized beds, vast majority of them address to the utilization of fluidized bed due to their advantages and large scale adaptability. The pyrolysis temperature and the residence time are reported to have major influence on the product distribution, with the increase in pyrolysis temperature favoring gas production, with significant reduction in the wax and oil. The pyrolysis gas generally contains H2, CO, CO2, CH4, C2H4, C2H6 while liquid product comprises benzene, toluene, xylene, styrene, light oil, heavy oil, and gasoline with the variations depending on process conditions. The effects of other process parameters, namely fuel feed rate, fuel composition, and fluidizing medium have been reviewed and presented.


2010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Weiqiang Li ◽  
Daulat D. Mamora

Abstract Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage (SAGD) is one successful thermal recovery technique applied in the Athabasca oil sands in Canada to produce the very viscous bitumen. Water for SAGD is limited in supply and expensive to treat and to generate steam. Consequently, we conducted a study into injecting high-temperature solvent instead of steam to recover Athabasca oil. In this study, hexane (C6) coinjection at condensing condition is simulated using CMG STARS to analyze the drainage mechanism inside the vapor-solvent chamber. The production performance is compared with an equivalent steam injection case based on the same Athabasca reservoir condition. Simulation results show that C6 is vaporized and transported into the vapor-solvent chamber. At the condensing condition, high temperature C6 reduces the viscosity of the bitumen more efficiently than steam and can displace out all the original oil. The oil production rate with C6 injection is about 1.5 to 2 times that of steam injection with oil recovery factor of about 100% oil initially-in-place. Most of the injected C6 can be recycled from the reservoir and from the produced oil, thus significantly reduce the solvent cost. Results of our study indicate that high-temperature solvent injection appears feasible although further technical and economic evaluation of the process is required.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1146 ◽  
pp. 32-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marius Adrian Constantin ◽  
Ana Boşneag ◽  
Eduard Niţu ◽  
Lia Nicoleta Boţilă

Welding copper and its alloys is usually difficult to achieve by conventional fusion welding processes because of high thermal diffusivity of the copper, which is at least 10 times higher than most steel alloys, in addition to this, there are the well-known disadvantages of conventional fusion welding represented by necessity of using alloying elements, a shielding gas and a clean surface. To overcome these inconveniences, Friction Stir Welding (FSW), a solid state joining process that relies on frictional heating and plastic deformation, is being explored as a feasible welding process. In order to achieve an increased welding speed and a reduction in tool wear, this process is assisted by another one (TIG) which generates and adds heat to the process. The research includes two experiments for the FSW process and one experiment for tungsten inert gas assisted FSW process. The process parameters that varied were the rotational speed of the tool [rpm] and the welding speed [mm/min] while the compressive force remained constant. The purpose of this paper is to correlate the evolution of temperature, tensile strength, elongation and microscopic aspect with the linear position on the joint (local process parameters) for each experimental case and then make comparisons between them, and to identify and present the set of process parameters that has the best mechanical properties for this material.


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