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US 9,200,130 B2Granted
Method for obtaining wax from recycled polyethylene
AssigneeXerox Corporation
InventorsMichael J. D'Amato, Santiago Faucher, Timothy L. Lincoln, Ali Darabi, Rosa Duque
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An economical and environmentally friendly method for producing waxes. In particular, the methods use thermolytic degradation concurrently with a distillation process to obtaining distilled waxes from recycled polyethylene. The resulting waxes have desirable properties, such as reduced molecular weight and narrow polydispersity, that makes the waxes useful in various applications.
Claims17
A process for producing a wax from recycled polyethylene, comprising:
- providing an amount of recycled polyethylene;
- heating the recycled polyethylene to a high temperature of from about 200 °C. to about 500 °C. and under a pressure of from about 1 mmHg absolute to about 100 mmHg absolute to undergo de-polymerization;
- degrading the recycled polyethylene to smaller wax fragments having a molecular weight of from about 200 to about 2,000;
- concurrently distilling the recycled polyethylene under a pressure of from about 1 mmHg absolute to about 100 mmHg absolute during the de-polymerization to collect and remove the smaller wax fragments.
1 more element
A process for producing a wax from recycled
- polyethylene, comprising:
- providing an amount of recycled polyethylene, wherein the recycled polyethylene has the following general structure
- wherein n represents repeating units and further wherein the recycled polyethylene has n from about 250 to about 3500;
- heating the recycled polyethylene to a high temperature of from about 200 °C. to about 500 °C. and under a pressure of from about 1 mmHg absolute to about 100 mmHg absolute to undergo de-polymerization;
- degrading the recycled polyethylene to smaller polyethylene fragments;
- concurrently distilling the recycled polyethylene under a pressure of from about 1 mmHg absolute to about 100 mmHg absolute during the de-polymerization to collect and remove the smaller polyethylene fragments, wherein the recycled polyethylene is converted to the smaller polyethylene fragments having n from about 15 to about 100 in the general structure.
3 more elements
A process for producing a wax from polyethylene, comprising:
- providing an amount of polyethylene;
- heating the polyethylene to a high temperature of from about 200 °C. to about 500 °C. under a pressure of from about 1 mmHg absolute to about 100 mmHg absolute with a vacuum pump to undergo de-polymerization;
- stirring the polyethylene during the heating step to degrade the polyethylene to smaller polyethylene fragments having a molecular weight of from about 200 to about 2,000;
- concurrently distilling the polyethylene under a pressure of from about 1 mmHg absolute to about 100 mmHg absolute with the vacuum pump during the de-polymerization to collect and remove the smaller polyethylene fragments.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.