Plastic Waste Conversion over a Refinery Waste Catalyst

Ina Vollmer, Michael J F Jenks, Rafael Mayorga González, Florian Meirer, Bert M Weckhuysen*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Polypropylene (PP) makes up a large share of our plastic waste. We investigated the conversion of PP over the industrial Fluid Catalytic Cracking catalyst (FCC-cat) used to produce gasoline from crude oil fractions. We studied transport limitations arising from the larger size of polymers compared to the crude oil-based feedstock by testing the components of this catalyst separately. Infrared spectroscopy and confocal fluorescence microscopy revealed the role of the FCC matrix in aromatization, and the zeolite Y domains in coking. An equilibrium catalyst (ECAT), discarded during FCC operation as waste, produced the same aromatics content as a fresh FCC-cat, while coking decreased significantly, likely due to the reduced accessibility and activity of the zeolite domains and an enhanced cracking activity of the matrix due to metal deposits present in ECAT. This mechanistic understanding provides handles for further improving the catalyst composition towards higher aromatics selectivity.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)16101-16108
Number of pages8
JournalAngewandte Chemie-International Edition
Volume60
Issue number29
Early online date11 May 2021
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 12 Jul 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We acknowledge Prof. E. T. C. Vogt from Utrecht University (UU) and L. Baron from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), for insightful discussion. This work was supported by the Netherlands Center for Multiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion (MCEC), a NWO Gravitation program funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the government of the Netherlands. This project has also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Sk?odowsk-Curie grant agreement No 801359.

Funding Information:
We acknowledge Prof. E. T. C. Vogt from Utrecht University (UU) and L. Baron from Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), for insightful discussion. This work was supported by the Netherlands Center for Multiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion (MCEC), a NWO Gravitation program funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science of the government of the Netherlands. This project has also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under the Marie Skłodowsk‐Curie grant agreement No 801359.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Angewandte Chemie International Edition published by Wiley-VCH GmbH

Keywords

  • Aromatics
  • coke formation
  • fluid catalytic cracking
  • plastic recycling
  • polypropylene

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