(291a) Elucidating Catalytic Pyrolysis of Representative Textile Wastes over Waste Glass-Derived Silica-Supported Transition Metal Catalysts

In practice, the textile wastes are incinerated to ash before dumped in landfill whereas the non-incinerable glass wastes persistently occupy the landfill. At present, the global recycling rates of textile wastes (12%) and glass wastes (21%) are dismal, which aggravate the shortage issue of landfill sites. Unlike highly pollutive waste incineration, the pyrolysis is a relatively cleaner thermochemical valorisation approach that empower the co-production of syngas, char, and oil from textile wastes under inert atmosphere. As textile wastes fall under municipal solid wastes (MSW), the pyrolysis of textile wastes is often benchmarked against other segregated MSW components, mixed/simulated MSW, and refused derived fuels. Withal, the actual composition of textile wastes is affected by spatial, temporal, and spatio-temporal variations. Since pyrolytic behaviour of different textile materials remain nebulous, six representative textile wastes (such as cotton, polyester, cotton-polyester, denim, polyacrylic, and wool-plant fibre) are selected as the pyrolysis feedstock to unveil their pyrolytic behaviour. To date, none of the textile pyrolysis studies incorporated heterogeneous catalysis, wherein the so-called “catalysts” are ostensibly chemical activating agent that pre-impregnated onto or physically mixed with the feedstocks. Herein, various commercial silica-supported transition metal (Ni, Co, Fe, Cu, or Mn) catalysts are used to hasten the textile pyrolysis process or modulate the product distribution in favour of desired pyrolytic products. Lastly, the waste glass-derived silica-supported transition metal catalysts are synthesized and benchmarked against their commercial counterparts for catalytic performance in textile pyrolysis. This study imparts some insights on the reutilization of textile wastes and glass wastes by repurposing them as pyrolysis feedstock and silica feedstock, respectively.