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Thermal Transformation of Metallized Plastic Packaging Waste into Value-Added Al/Al 3 C 4 /AlN Resources

2018; American Chemical Society; Volume: 7; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1021/acssuschemeng.8b05503

2168-0485

Songyan Yin, Ravindra Rajarao, Veena Sahajwalla,

Extraction and Separation Processes

Metallized plastic, a sandwiched multilayered combination of polymers and aluminum, is widely used in the packaging industry attributed to their lower cost and superior barrier properties. Accordingly, huge amounts of metallized plastic packaging waste are being generated due to their extensive usage and short service life. The technical difficulties associated with separation and reprocessing makes recycling of metallized plastic packaging waste quite limited. In this work, a sustainable and systematic recovering method has been developed to transform metallized plastic packaging waste into value-added Al/Al4C3/AlN resources. The metallized plastic packaging waste investigated is mainly composed of layers of polymers (polypropylene, polyethene, and polyethene terephthalate) and aluminum. Thermal transformations of metallized plastic waste at elevated temperatures would involve a series of complex chemical reactions leading to the generation of valuable fuel gaseous and aluminum resources. On the basis of detail studies for the chemical nature and thermal behavior of the waste, the aluminum component it contained was systematically isolated (Al) or transformed into aluminum carbide (Al4C3) by reacting with the carbon cracked from the polymer components or aluminum nitride (AlN) nanowires by direct nitridation or carbothermal and nitridation reaction.