Microwave Thermal Decomposition of Waste Polystyrene in Motor Oil

Tae Won Kang, Xiao Yun Liu

Department of Chemical Engineering, Kongju National Univ., Kongju, Korea

Abstract

A novel microwave-induced pyrolysis of waste polystyrene in motor oil was performed in quartz tube reactor. Different pyrolysis conditions were investigated, such as time range from 30 minutes to 1 hour and effective microwave power range from 180 to 250 watt. The distillate components were analyzed with GC-MS.
Microwave-induced pyrolysis showed favorable performance on the thermal decomposition of polystyrene in improving the recovery of valuable products from polystyrene and lowering the pyrolysis temperature, compared to previous works.
The distillate products from the pyrolysis of waste polystyrene include styrene (71.60 weight %), 1-methyl- styrene (15.42 weight %), toluene (7.84 weight %) and ethyl-benzene (5.14 weight %). Reaction temperature of pyrolysis using microwave was much lower than that of conventional thermal pyrolysis method. Waste polystyrene could completely decompose to distillate products at around 300â?? in the presence of motor oil.

Key words: microwave, thermal decomposition, motor oil, microwave-induced pyrolysis, polystyrene