Kinetic study on pyrolysis of waste phenolic fibre-reinforced plastic

Pyrolysis is considered to be a promising method to recycle waste plastics for fuel or chemical feedstock. In order to provide guidance for reactor design and pyrolysis process management for recycling waste phenolic fibre-reinforced plastic (FRP), the pyrolysis behaviors of waste phenolic FRP is studied employing thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) over a wide heating rate range from 10 K/min to 70 K/min in nitrogen. A two-step consecutive reaction model is proposed to characterize the pyrolysis process. A global optimization algorithm called genetic algorithm (GA) coupled with the two-step consecutive reaction model is used to obtain all the kinetic parameters simultaneously based upon the experimental thermogravimetric data at heating rates of 10, 20 and 30 K/min. The predicted MLR and conversion curves using the optimized kinetic parameters and the two-step consecutive reaction model fit well with the experimental results not only at heating rates of 10, 20 and 30 K/min, but also at heating rates of 50, 60 and 70 K/min which are not used to obtain the kinetic parameters. The optimized kinetic parameters and the two-step consecutive reaction model may be applicable to the pyrolysis of waste phenolic FRP under more practical and complex thermal conditions that can be characterized by various heating rates.