Green Technologies and Sustainability (May 2024)

Co-pyrolysis of Chlorella vulgaris with plastic wastes: Thermal degradation, kinetics and Progressive Depth Swarm-Evolution (PDSE) neural network-based optimization

  • Isabel Jia Yen Tan,
  • Adrian Chun Minh Loy,
  • Bridgid Lai Fui Chin,
  • Kin Wai Cheah,
  • Sin Yong Teng,
  • Bing Shen How,
  • Hatem Alhazmi,
  • Wei Dong Leong,
  • Huei Yeong Lim,
  • Man Kee Lam,
  • Su Shiung Lam

Journal volume & issue
Vol. 2, no. 2
p. 100077

Abstract

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The search of sustainable route for biofuel production from renewable biomass have garnered wide interest to seek for various routes without compromising the environment. Co-pyrolysis emerges as a promising thermochemical route that can improve the pyrolysis output from simultaneously processing more than two feedstocks in an inert atmosphere. This paper focuses on the kinetic modeling and neuro-evolution optimization in the application of catalytic co-pyrolysis of microalgae and plastic waste using HZSM-5 supported on limestone (HZSM-5/LS), in which co-pyrolysis of binary mixture of microalgae and plastic wastes (i.e. High-Density Polyethylene and Low-Density Polyethylene) was investigated over different heating rates. The results have shown a positive synergistic effect between the microalgae and polyethylene in which the apparent activation energies values have reduced significantly (∼20 kJ/mol) compared to that obtained by pyrolysis of individual microalgae component. The kinetic models reflect that the mixture of microalgae and Low-Density Polyethylene for use as co-pyrolysis feedstock requires activation energy that is 23% and 13% lower compared to that required by pure microalgae and the mixture of microalgae and High-Density Polyethylene, respectively. The Progressive Depth Swarm-Evolution (PDSE) was used for neural architecture search, which subsequently provided optimal reaction condition at 873 K can achieve 99.6 % of degradation rate using a tri-combination of LDPE (0.13 %) + HDPE (0.77 %) + MA (0.11 %) in the presence of HZSM-5/LS catalyst.

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