Combustion of Polymers in a Fluidised Bed Reactor

Polymers are used to produce plastics and nowadays there are lots of everyday usage products made from polymers. Consequently there are lots of waste polymers in municipal solid waste as well. Combustion of waste polymers is a very practical method for the total disposal of them from the environment but although the typical chemical composition of natural fuels, polymers are very specific fuels and it is not easy to burn them giving complete combustion products, that are CO2 and H2O. In the following work the method of the thermal decomposition and combustion of some polymers with using fluidised bed technology is proposed. The thermal decomposition and combustion processes of PC, PET, PC/ABS and PS were realized in the laboratory bubbling fluidised bed reactor. The polymers were burnt with propane in the sand bed which temperature reached 900 oC. The identification of the selected components in the flue gases and the visual process observations by using two digital cameras were made. A few gas analysers applied different chemical sensors for monitoring the concentrations of O2, CO2, CO, VOCs and NOx. The digital cameras made the films with the different frequencies of the frames per second and the different areas of the reactor were observed. The performed experiments enabled the studies of the kinetics of the investigated processes.