Advances in Dechlorination of Plastic Pyrolysis Oil

The world is quickly shifting from dependance on fossil fuels and feedstocks to use of bio-based and circular feedstocks. This will help combat growing landfills and environmental pollution as well as minimize anthropogenic emissions. One key technology in this area is chemical recycling. In particular, pyrolysis has the potential to convert used plastics which are not suitable for mechanical recycling back into a feedstock for the petrochemical industry. As with any new technology, there are many hurdles to overcome in bringing this to scale. One of the biggest hurdles today is organic chlorides. These are primarily brought in with the pyrolysis reactor feed in the form of PVC. Several technologies exist to reduce the chloride concentration within the pyrolysis reactor, but even the cleanest pyrolysis oil products will still have tens of ppms of organic chlorides. This is still high enough to cause significant corrosion risks within petrochemical facilities. While organic chloride sorbents have existed for decades, they have proven to be minimally effective on this class of higher molecular weight organic chlorides. To combat this, a new generation of pyrolysis oil specific adsorbents is being developed. With these new adsorbents, it is now possible to meet the chloride specifications for even the most stringent petrochemical complexes.