Catalytic conversion of hard plastics to valuable carbon nanotubes

Xiang Gou, Dong Zhao, Chunfei Wu*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

The management of waste hard plastics is a big challenge in the world. Conventional pyrolysis and gasification of hard plastics have been extensively reported. However, producing high values carbon nanotubes as the main product or byproduct from hard plastics has been rarely reported. In this work, we studied and reported this work by using pyrolysis of phenolic formaldehyde resin producing high value carbon nanotubes to promote the economic competitiveness of the technology. The produced carbon nanotubes were characterized by scanning electronic microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and temperature programme oxidation. The yield of CNTs using the Ni catalysts is about 24.07 % and its purity is 93.13 %. Compared with the Ni catalysts, the Fe catalysts have higher yield and purity of CNTs, reaching 34.39 % and 97.45 %, respectively. Through transmission electron microscopy and Raman characterization, it is found that the graphitization quality of CNTs produced from Fe catalysts is higher than that of the CNTs produced from Ni catalysts.

Original languageEnglish
Article number104748
Number of pages8
JournalJournal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis
Volume145
Early online date30 Nov 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2020

Keywords

  • Carbon nanotubes
  • Catalytic cracking
  • Pyrolysis
  • Waste hard plastics

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Analytical Chemistry
  • Fuel Technology

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