Decomposition and conversion of waste thermosetting plastics to resources by low temperature steam plasma

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Building up the recycling system of synthetic polymer is one of the important solution for the reduction of environmental load and several techniques has been developed for the thermoplastics such as conversion techniques to fuel oil but very few for the thermosetting plastics. In this project, decomposition of thermally hardening plastics of unsaturated polyester-plastics using H_2O plasma technique was investigated to reuse the products as resources. Both hydrogen and OH radicals were generated from H_2O plasma and those were effective to decompose the waste thermosetting plastics. In the experiment of thermal degradation, the products trapped at cold trap with dry ice-methanol comprise eight compounds of C_1 to C_5 alcohol as the main products such as methanol, ethanol, acetone, 1-propanol, 2-methyl-2-propanol, 2-methyl-1-propanol, ethylene glycol, 1-pentanol. On the other hand, thirteen compounds of C_1 to C_5 alcohol were found similar as in thermal decomposition reaction as the main products such as methanol, ethanol , acetone, 2-propanol, 1-propanol, 2-propen-1-ol, 2-methyl-2-propanol, 2-butanol, 2-methyl-1-propanol, 1-butanol, 3-pentanol, 2-methyl-1-butanol, propylene glycol. The plasma system could realize zero emission of waste during the process ; i.e. environmentally friendly process.