Challenges and opportunities of light olefin production via thermal and catalytic pyrolysis of end-of-life polyolefins: Towards full recyclability

Is full recyclability of polyolefins via chemical recycling a dream, or can it become a reality? The main problem in recycling plastic waste is that its composition is highly heterogeneous while sorting and purifying solutions to obtain mono-streams are complex and require large investments, thereby hampering the economy of scale. Ideally, novel chemical recycling processes are designed to have mixed plastic wastes as input and higher value products are produced such as C2–C4 olefins or aromatics instead of a low value oil. In this review we show the directions how we can realize these objectives. Classical thermal pyrolysis offers some possibilities but requires very high temperatures exceeding 800 °C to…

• AI
  Agentschap Innoveren en Ondernemen

  Award: HBC.2019.0001
• FW
  Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek

  Awards: 1185822N, 818607
• VR
  Vlaamse regering