Title : Plasma chemical recycling of household waste
Abstract:
Increasing mass of non-recycled plastic waste is one of the major environmental issue in developed and developing countries. While the fraction of collected plastic waste is steadily increasing, the selection, treatment and recycling is still a major issue in particular for mixed or even combined materials. Besides technical issues the cost balance of complex processes is negative, as in most cases the valorisation is based on the revenues generated by the energetic content of the (mostly) hydrocarbons. Therefore, the green chemistry group develops a plasma process which converts plastic waste into chemical feedstock of higher economic value than the basic energetic equivalent, e.g. acetylene or ethylene. In this presentation, the opportunities and issues of this method will be described. So far, first results show that the treatment of most common plastic waste fractions (Polyethylene PE, polypropylene PP, polystyrene PS, polyethylene-terephthalate PET) may result in more than 50% conversion of plastic waste into high-value chemical feedstock gases. This opens up the opportunity for a closed life cycle of plastic, by replacing the resources of fossil origine, i.e. high temperature and/or catalytic cracking of crude oil or natural gas, which is commonly used to generate acetylene and ethylene as precursors of the relevant monomer, by the plastic waste itself.
