Thermal-catalytic degradation of polyethylene over silicoaluminophosphate molecular sieves-A thermogravimetric study

The present work is aimed at recycling plastic wastes economically and efficiently, for which pure high density polyethylene (HDPE) has been initially selected for the investigations. Thermogravimetric technique has been used to investigate, analyze and compare the thermal and catalytic degradation of HDPE. The catalytic degradation was investigated over the medium pore silicoaluminophosphate, SAPO-11 molecular sieve. The thermogravimetric evaluation was performed using 2-30 wt% catalyst, and the apparent activation energies for the thermal and catalytic polymer degradation were estimated using various iso-conversional methods. The apparent activation energy was found to be lower when SAPO-11 was used compared to the direct thermal degradation of HDPE. The activation energy and coke levels are comparable to the medium pore zeolite ZSM-5 and lower than the values obtained over large pore zeolites reported in literature.