Application of pyrolysis process to remove and recover liquid crystal and films from waste liquid crystal display glass

Highlights: ► Pyrolysis process can recycle the liquid crystal and films from liquid crystal display glass successfully. ► The removal of organic parts from the liquid crystal glass reached 87.87 wt%. ► The mechanism analysis of pyrolysis process explains the whole pyrolysis process perfect. ► All pyrolysis products can be tilized by a reasonable way. - Abstract: Liquid crystal display (LCD) glass mainly consists of polarizing film, liquid crystal and glass substrate. Removing and recovering the liquid crystal and films from the LCD glass effectively has important significance for recovering the other parts. This study proposed a pyrolysis process to recover the organic parts from LCD glass. Through thermal gravimetric analysis, the pyrolysis temperature of the LCD glass could be chosen at 850 K. The removal rate of organic parts from LCD glass reached 87.87 wt%. Pyrolysis products consisted of 66.82 wt% oils, 21.01 wt% gaseous and 12.13 wt% residues. In addition, the oils contained 46.27 wt% acetic acid and 32.94 wt% triphenyl phosphate. Then, the pyrolysis mechanisms and products sources of the liquid crystal glass have been analyzed based on the information of bonds energy. The pyrolysis mechanism analysis proved that the products mainly consisted of acetic acid, triphenyl phosphate and C, which is consistent to the results of GC–MS analysis. A reasonable way has been put forward to recycle the pyrolysis products: acetic acid and triphenyl phosphate can be collected by distillation, the rest oils and gases can be used as fuel and the remained glass can be used to extract indium and to produce building materials.