A Combined Experimental and Mechanistic Modeling Approach to Study Polymer Pyrolysis
Start Date
29-2-2012 4:05 PM
Description
Motivated by the increasing needs of recovering waste plastics into high-value products or energy, a combined experimental and mechanistic modeling approach was performed to study pyrolysis chemistry of polystyrene, polypropylene, and their mixture. In our work, batch polymer pyrolysis was performed under different reaction temperatures. The detailed product distributions of the pyrolysis experiments were obtained using gel permeation chromatography and gas chromatography equipped with a mass spectrometer and a flame ionization detector. A mechanistic modeling for polymer pyrolysis was constructed separately based on literature parameters and theoretical derivations. Method of moments was used to describe polymer molecular weight distributions, and low molecular weight pyrolysis products were specifically tracked. Our modeling results showed excellent agreement with our experiments, suggesting that the reaction pathways postulated in the model are the major channels responsible for polymer degradation. Our approach can be easily extended to simulate polymer pyrolysis in thermal protection system ablative materials, providing detailed mechanistic understanding of the polymer degradation process for the prediction of the materials response.
A Combined Experimental and Mechanistic Modeling Approach to Study Polymer Pyrolysis
Motivated by the increasing needs of recovering waste plastics into high-value products or energy, a combined experimental and mechanistic modeling approach was performed to study pyrolysis chemistry of polystyrene, polypropylene, and their mixture. In our work, batch polymer pyrolysis was performed under different reaction temperatures. The detailed product distributions of the pyrolysis experiments were obtained using gel permeation chromatography and gas chromatography equipped with a mass spectrometer and a flame ionization detector. A mechanistic modeling for polymer pyrolysis was constructed separately based on literature parameters and theoretical derivations. Method of moments was used to describe polymer molecular weight distributions, and low molecular weight pyrolysis products were specifically tracked. Our modeling results showed excellent agreement with our experiments, suggesting that the reaction pathways postulated in the model are the major channels responsible for polymer degradation. Our approach can be easily extended to simulate polymer pyrolysis in thermal protection system ablative materials, providing detailed mechanistic understanding of the polymer degradation process for the prediction of the materials response.