Issue 4, 2022
From the journal:

Reaction Chemistry & Engineering

Effect of reaction conditions on the hydrogenolysis of polypropylene and polyethylene into gas and liquid alkanes†

Linxiao Chen, ORCID logo ‡a   Yifeng Zhu,‡b   Laura C. Meyer, ORCID logo a   Lillian V. Hale,a   Thuy T. Le,a   Abhi Karkamkar,a   Johannes A. Lercher,a   Oliver Y. Gutiérrez ORCID logo *a  and  János Szanyi ORCID logo *a  

* Corresponding authors

a Institute for Integrated Catalysis, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA 99352, USA
E-mail: oliver.gutierrez@pnnl.gov, janos.szanyi@pnnl.gov

b Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, P.R. China

Abstract

Hydrogenolysis of polypropylene (PP) and polyethylene (PE) provides a pathway to convert these plastics into smaller hydrocarbons at relatively low temperature. Among carbon (C)-supported transition metals, ruthenium (Ru) exhibited the highest efficacy, producing mixtures of C1–C38 alkanes. The branching degree of the products depends on the position of the C–C cleavage, which can be tuned by the pressure of H2. Liquid alkanes are produced below 225 °C and 200 °C from PP and PE, respectively, at 30 bar. The C distribution and branching level of the products remain invariant below full conversion of the initial polymer. Increasing H2 pressure favors the hydrogenolysis of internal C–C bonds, reducing methane (CH4) production, and favors linear over branched products. A liquid yield of >57% was achieved with PE under optimum conditions. We reveal the impact of the starting polyolefin structure, reaction conditions, and presence of chlorine on the product distribution and branching degree.

Graphical abstract: Effect of reaction conditions on the hydrogenolysis of polypropylene and polyethylene into gas and liquid alkanes

About
Cited by
Related
Download options Please wait...

Supplementary files

Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/D1RE00431J
Article type
Paper
Submitted
30 Sep 2021
Accepted
26 Jan 2022
First published
02 Feb 2022
This article is Open Access
Creative Commons BY-NC license

React. Chem. Eng., 2022,7, 844-854

Permissions

Request permissions

Effect of reaction conditions on the hydrogenolysis of polypropylene and polyethylene into gas and liquid alkanes

L. Chen, Y. Zhu, L. C. Meyer, L. V. Hale, T. T. Le, A. Karkamkar, J. A. Lercher, O. Y. Gutiérrez and J. Szanyi, React. Chem. Eng., 2022, 7, 844 DOI: 10.1039/D1RE00431J

This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported Licence. You can use material from this article in other publications, without requesting further permission from the RSC, provided that the correct acknowledgement is given and it is not used for commercial purposes.

To request permission to reproduce material from this article in a commercial publication, please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

If you are an author contributing to an RSC publication, you do not need to request permission provided correct acknowledgement is given.

If you are the author of this article, you do not need to request permission to reproduce figures and diagrams provided correct acknowledgement is given. If you want to reproduce the whole article in a third-party commercial publication (excluding your thesis/dissertation for which permission is not required) please go to the Copyright Clearance Center request page.

Read more about how to correctly acknowledge RSC content.

Social activity

Spotlight

Advertisements