Plastic Waste Upgrading by Coupling Microwave Heating with Catalytic Pyrolysis

我建议的研究重点是循环经济，其中过程电气化与催化热解相结合，以解决新出现的严重环境问题之一：塑料废物。由于传统和易于加工的资源的枯竭以及越来越严格的环境法规，循环经济是价值链线性经济的一个不错的替代方案。通过这样做，加拿大人将大大受益于更好地利用（和稳定）废物。它将改善加拿大的环境绩效，为其工业提供新的收入来源，并使其工业更具竞争力。为了利用废物并使其增值，由于交叉污染和废物分离过程的局限性，回收利用在技术上和经济上并不总是可行的。 过程工业的电气化是在第四次工业革命的背景下进行的。了解到电力是一种可再生和清洁的能源，将其应用于过程工业将在环境保护，提高生产力和业务增长方面带来好处。在这种情况下，微波加热辅助工艺具有显著的优点。由于微波加热与目标的结构特征、物理性质相关，因此每种被加热材料的响应是不同的。这产生了与多相/多组分系统的整体温度完全不同的局部温度。在过去的十年里，我把这个严峻的挑战转化为化学反应的重大机遇，我想把它扩展到塑料升级。 塑料是现代生活中不可避免的产品，因为它们的性能低成本，但大多数都只使用一次！此外，到2050年，全球对塑料的需求可能会增加两倍（到2050年，塑料可能比海洋中的鱼类还要多）。另一方面，大多数使用过的塑料从未被回收：在美国和加拿大，大约90%的塑料废物被填埋或焚烧。 为了避免产生不利的产品（例如气体和蜡），我的研究计划是开发和扩大催化热解过程，其中微波接收器与适当的催化剂相结合。塑料废物是各种塑料的混合物（没有上游分类和分离单个塑料）。这项研究的目的是将塑料废物转化为原始单体，从而闭合循环。为了实现这一长期目标，我们将研究核-壳催化剂的合成，使微波受体成为核，催化剂层形成壳。预期在微波加热下的这种分级结构将防止塑料与微波受体的直接接触，而它促使在催化剂的加热的活性位点上选择性地产生单体。

My proposed research focuses on the circular economy wherein process electrification is coupled with catalytic pyrolysis to solve one of the emerging and serious environmental issues: Plastic wastes. The circular economy is a decent alternative to the linear economy of the value chain due to the depletion of conventional and easily processable resources as well as the increasing stringent environmental regulations. By doing so, Canadians would greatly benefit from a better utilization (and valorization) of waste. It would improve Canada's environmental performance, offer new revenue streams for its industries and make its industries more competitive. To utilize and valorize waste, recycling is not always techno-economically possible due to cross-contamination and limitations of waste separation processes. Electrification of the process industries lies in the context of the 4th industrial revolution. Knowing the electricity is a renewable and clean energy resource, its implementation onto the process industries would provide benefits in terms of environment protection, enhanced productivity, and business growth. In this context, there are significant advantages attributed to microwave heating assisted processes. Since microwave heating is correlated with structural characteristics, the physical properties of the target(s), the response of each heated material is different. This creates a local temperature that is totally different from the bulk temperature of multiphase/multi-component systems. I have turned this serious challenge to a significant opportunity for chemical reactions in the past decade, and I would like to extend it to plastic upgrading. Plastics are unavoidable products in the modern life due to their performance at low cost, BUT most of them are only used once! In addition, the global demand for plastics could be tripled by 2050 (probably more plastics than fish in oceans by 2050). On the other hand, a majority of the used plastics are never recovered: about 90% of the plastic waste is landfilled or incinerated in the U.S. and Canada. To avoid production of unfavorable products (e.g. gases and wax), my research program is to develop and scale up a catalytic pyrolysis process wherein a microwave receptor is coupled with an appropriate catalyst. The plastic waste is a mixture of all sorts of plastics (without upstream sorting and separation of individual plastics). The purpose of this research is to transform plastic wastes to original monomers, which consequently closes the loop. In line with this long-term goal, we will investigate the synthesis of core-shell catalysts so that the microwave receptor is the core and the catalyst layer forms the shell. It is expected that this hierarchical structure under microwave heating would prevent the direct contact of plastics with the microwave receptor whereas it motivates selective production of monomers on the heated active sites of the catalyst.