Pirólise de resíduo industrial de laminado de polietileno

Abstract

The growth in the generation of plastic waste intensified with the COVID-19 Pandemic, bringing even more challenges to Sustainable Development Goals performance of UN. Therefore, the search for new treatment technologies of this plastic waste has become a necessity for big companies. The polyethylene laminate is a flexible packaging much used for storage of cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and food. This work aims to evaluate the conventional and catalytic pyrolysis process of polyethylene laminate as an alternative to recovery of value-added products. The characterization of the residue was performed to determine its energy potential through thermogravimetric analysis (TG), volatile content, ashes content and calorific value. The solid residue of the thermal process was characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF). HZSM-5 zeolite was used as a catalyst with a catalytic pyrolysis process. The pyrolysis analyses were developed in a HP-R 5200 CDS Analytical micropyrolyzer linked to a gas chromatograph with a mass spectrometer detector (GC-MS). The waste characterization analysis showed high volatile content (97.47%) and low ash content (2.53%). The use of zeolite as a catalyst increased the concentration of aromatics with good potential to fuel production such as gasoline. The compounds obtained by conventional pyrolysis showed a higher concentration of hydrocarbons, about 76.70%, in the Diesel range (C10 – C25). The results of solid waste characterization found the presence of TiO2 with a concentration of 99.7%, being 88.4% rutile. In short, the study showed an excellent potential for converting laminate waste into fuels in addition to recovering the oxide for application in industry beyond to the recovery of the oxide for application in the industry, being therefore, a sustainable alternative for the treatment of this residue in the context of the circular economy.