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On April 9, 2024, Chinese scientists published an article in the journal Nature Chemistry on the recycling of polyethylene to produce high-quality gasoline, which is expected to achieve the efficient use of waste polyethylene plastics.
The resource utilization of waste plastics can not only solve the problem of environmental pollution, but also achieve sustainable development of resources. In waste plastics, polyethylene is very difficult to convert, and its non-polar "carbon-carbon bond" is difficult to activate and break at low temperatures.
At present, the main strategy for converting polyethylene is achieved under the conditions of high reaction temperature (above 400°C), noble metal catalyst and external hydrogenation source, and the strict reaction conditions limit the application of industrially recycled polyethylene.
Based on the problems faced by the catalytic conversion of polyethylene, the researchers used tetrabutylammonium hydroxide as a structure directing agent to synthesize a molecular sieve with a layered self-supporting structure (LSP) by one-step hydrothermal reaction for the catalytic conversion of polyethylene.
This LSP zeolite has a larger specific surface area, abundant mesoporous pores, and more strong Lewis acid sites, which can better adsorb and activate reactants, and improve the reaction rate of polyethylene conversion.
Compared with traditional zeolites, LSP zeolites have a unique self-supporting structure and more strong Lewis acid sites, which can play a key role in catalyzing the conversion of polyethylene.
Gasoline is mainly composed of hydrocarbons in the C4-C12 range and is a mixture of alkanes, olefins, and naphthenes. Octane number is a numerical indicator that measures the ability of gasoline to resist knocking in the cylinder, and is usually used to evaluate the performance of motor gasoline, that is, the quality of gasoline.
The experimental results show that the layered self-supporting structure molecular sieve (LSP-Z100) prepared in this study can realize the conversion from high-density polyethylene to gasoline after 4 hours at a temperature of 240°C and without an external hydrogen source, with a yield of up to 80%. By testing its liquid phase products, the C4-C12 components accounted for 99% and the branched alkanes accounted for 72%, which had a high octane number (88.0), comparable to the octane number of commercial gasoline (86.6).
The above results show that the layered self-supporting structure molecular sieve (LSP-Z100) has the feasibility of catalyzing the conversion of polyethylene into high-quality gasoline. This study provides a new way of thinking for solving the environmental pollution problem of waste polyethylene plastics and how to effectively realize resource utilization.
References
[1] Cen, Z., Han, X., Lin, L. et al. Upcycling of polyethylene to gasoline through a self-supplied hydrogen strategy in a layered self-pillared zeolite[J]. Nature Chemistry, 2024.
[2] Xie Yufei, Wang Qi, Zeng Junmin, et al. Research progress on the recycling and application of waste polyethylene plastics[J].Plastics Science and Technology, 2022.
[3] Zhang J, Guo M, Zhang Y, et al. Research progress on pyrolysis of waste polyethylene plastics to fuel[J].Petrochemical Technology, 2022.
[4] Gautam K R . A Novel Process of Converting Polyethylene to Gasoline, Middle Distillate and Heavy Oil through Hydropyrolysis Route[J]. International Journal of Energy Engineering, 2013.
Source: Sustainable Plastics & Fuels
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