CO₂-mediated thermal treatment of disposable plastic food containers

In accordance with global economic prosperity, the frequencies of food delivery and takeout orders have been increasing. The pandemic life, specifically arising from COVID-19, rapidly expanded the food delivery service. Thus, the massive generation of disposable plastic food containers has become significant environmental problems. Establishing a sustainable disposal platform for plastic packaging waste (PPW) of food delivery containers has intrigued particular interest. To comprise this grand challenge, a reliable thermal disposable platform has been suggested in this study. From the pyrolysis process, a heterogeneous plastic mixture of PPW was converted into syngas and value-added hydrocarbons (HCs). PPW collected from five different restaurants consisted of polypropylene (36.9 wt%), polyethylene (10.5 wt%), polyethylene terephthalate (18.1 wt%), polystyrene (13.5 wt%), polyvinyl chloride (4.2 wt%), and other composites (16.8 wt%). Due to these compositional complexities, pyrolysis of PPW led to formations of a variety of benzene derivatives and aliphatic HCs. Adapting multi-stage pyrolysis, the different chemicals were converted into industrial chemicals (benzene, toluene, styrene, etc.). To selectively convert HCs into syngas (H₂ and CO), catalytic pyrolysis was adapted using supported Ni catalyst (5 wt% Ni/SiO₂). Over Ni catalyst, H₂ was produced as a main product due to C[sbnd]H bond scission of HCs. When CO₂ was used as a co-reactant, HCs were further transformed to H₂ and CO through the chemical reactions of CO₂ with gas phase HCs. CO₂-assisted catalytic pyrolysis also retarded catalyst deactivation inhibiting coke deposition on Ni catalyst.