Catalytic Co-pyrolysis of Empty Fruit Bunch and High-density Polyethylene

Abstract

The main objective of the present work is to investigate the thermal degradation behaviour of the non-catalytic and catalytic co-pyrolysis of empty fruit bunch (EFB) and high-density polyethylene (HDPE) over commercial hydrogen exchanged zeolite socony mobil five (HZSM-5) and rice husk ash (RHA) catalysts via thermogravimetric analyser (TGA). RHA catalysts were produced using the solvent-free method by converting RHA into HZSM-5. XRD characterization was conducted for the synthesized catalysts and RHA catalyst showed less amount of peaks compared to commercial HZSM-5. Non-catalytic and catalytic co-pyrolysis of EFB and HDPE over commercial HZSM-5 and RHA catalysts were conducted using TGA. A fixed EFB-to-HDPE mass ratio of 1:1 and a fixed catalyst-to-feedstock mass ratio of 1:1 were used for the TGA experiments. The sample was heated up under pyrolysis conditions at a heating rate of 20 °C/min until 700 °C. The thermal degradation behaviour of EFB and HDPE did not change significantly when RHA catalysts were used, based on the TG curves. Volatilization of matter was maximum between temperatures 240 °C and 500 °C (Phase II) for all cases of the pyrolysis process, where the highest volatilized matter of 93.2 wt% was produced from the catalytic process over commercial HZSM-5, followed by the catalytic process over RHA catalysts with 92.3 wt% of volatilized matter and non-catalytic process with 83.0 wt% of volatilized matter. When using catalysts, 0.44 wt% of solid residual was left when commercial HZSM-5 was used while 0.38 wt% of solid residual was left when RHA catalyst was used.