Robotic separation of plastics for chemical recycling
AssigneeAnellotech, Inc.
InventorsLeslaw Mleczko, Yu-Ting Cheng, Gregory S. Coil, Harley Freeman
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Abstract
The invention comprises methods of robotically separating unwanted heteroatom-containing materials from a plastic mixture and catalytically pyrolyzing the resulting mixed plastics to obtain olefins and aromatics. Systems and compositions useful in the catalytic pyrolysis of plastics are also described.
Claims20
A method of converting a mixture comprising plastics to olefins, or aromatics, or both, comprising:
- a. providing a first mixture comprising the mixture comprising plastics and removing heteroatom containing materials from the feed mixture by use of a robotic mechanical system for removing materials;
- b. mechanically and/or thermally processing of the remaining mixture;
- c. feeding the mixture to a pyrolysis reactor;
- d. pyrolyzing the remaining feed mixture within the reactor in the presence of a catalyst under reaction conditions sufficient to produce a raw product mixture comprising one or more olefins, or one or more aromatics, or both.
A method of converting a mixed feed of materials, comprising:
- a. providing a first stream comprising one or more polymers;
- b. separating heteroatom containing materials from the first stream by robotic mechanical separation to produce a separated second stream and a heteroatom containing stream;
- c. feeding the second stream of materials to a fluidized bed pyrolysis reactor comprising a catalyst;
- d. pyrolyzing the second stream in the reactor;
- e. transferring at least a portion of the used catalyst with coke to a regenerator where the coke is reacted with oxygen or air to form hot regenerated catalyst and returning at least a portion of the hot regenerated catalyst to the fluidized bed reactor wherein heat from the hot regenerated catalyst provides energy to the step of pyrolyzing.
A method of catalytically pyrolyzing a feed mixture comprising a mixture of polymers in a fluidized bed reactor wherein at least a portion of the heteroatom containing materials have been robotically mechanically separated from the feed and the amount of oxygen introduced into the process is at least enough such that combustion of feed materials or other components with the introduced oxygen increases the temperature of the reacting mixture by at least 25° C., or at least 100° C., or at least 200° C., or at least 300° C., or from 50° C. to 400° C., or from 100° C. to 400° C., or from 200° C. to 400° C.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.