Valorizing Plastic-Contaminated Waste Streams through the Catalytic Hydrothermal Processing of Polypropylene with Lignocellulose.

ABSTRACT: Food waste is a promising resource for the production of fuels and chemicals. However, increasing plastic contamination has a large impact on the efficiency of conversion for the more established biological routes such as anaerobic digestion or fermentation. Here, we assessed a novel route through the hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of a model waste (pistachio hulls) and polypropylene (PP). Pure pistachio hulls gave a biocrude yield of 34% (w/w), though this reduced to 16% (w/w) on the addition of 50% PP in the mixture. The crude composition was a complex blend of phenolics, alkanes, carboxylic acids, and other oxygenates, which did not change substantially on the addition of PP. Pure PP does not breakdown at all under HTL conditions (350 °C, 15% solids loading), and even with biomass, the

SUBMITTER: Hongthong S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7439709 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature