Kinetic study of catalyzed pyrolysis of polyolefins

The aim of this work is to provide knowledge on catalytic degradation of waste mixture of high density polyethylene (HDPE) and propylene (PP) by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA). All experiments have been conducted in temperatures range 293-873 K, utilizing heating rates of 3, 5, 7, 10 and 20 Kmin^-1 . TG experiments have shown the efficiency of different amounts of ZSM-5 catalyst in polyolefin degradation. The obtained TG curves indicate that catalytic process of pyrolysis occurs in one-step degradation. The apparent kinetic parameters such as activation (E_a) energy and pre-exponential (A) factor have been determined using an integral iso-conversion Flynn-Wall-Ozawa model free method. (author)