Catalytic Decomposition of a Mixture of Poly(vinyl chloride) and Low Density Polyethylene

Toshiro TSUJI*, Hideo IKEMOTO and Hironori ITOH

Graduate School of Engineering, Hokkaido University; N13-W8 Kita-ku, Sapporo-shi 060-8628 Japan

Mixtures of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) and low density polyethylene (LDPE) were reacted in a flow reactor with a fixed catalyst bed at 450, 500 and 550 °C with 100 mL/min of N2 as a carrier gas to clear the influence of mixing plastics on the yields of products. H-ZSM5 was used as the catalyst. Samples were injected to the top of the catalyst bed by a screwfeeder. Oil and gaseous products were recovered in the trap cooled with liquid nitrogen and in a “Tedlar” bag respectively. The products were analyzed by using GC. Pure PVC and LDPE were also reacted under the same conditions as the mixtures for comparing.
The mixture of PVC and LDPE in the ratio of 1 : 1 (weight) gave almost no effect on the yield of the lighter products such as gaseous product and BTX naphthalene at any reaction temperatures, i.e. the measured products yields were almost same value as the estimation by the results from pure PVC and LDPE. However, the mixture of PVC 1: LDPE 9 gave higher yield than those estimated on the lower boiling point products in the reaction at 500 and 550 °C. It is suggested that there may be an appropriate mixing ratios to give the maximum yield of such products in the reaction of mixture of plastics.
Under these reaction conditions, HCl evolved from PVC gave almost no influence on the products yields.


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