(2015) Journal of Environmental Management_Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) mitigation in the pyrolysis process of waste tires using CO₂ as a reaction medium

Kwon E.E., Oh J.-I., Kim K.-H.

(Academic Press) Journal of Environmental Management ISSN: 3014797 Vol.160 Issue. Article No. DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2015.06.033

Our work reported the CO₂-assisted mitigation of PAHs and VOCs in the thermo-chemical process (i.e., pyrolysis). To investigate the pyrolysis of used tires to recover energy and chemical products, the experiments were conducted using a laboratory-scale batch-type reactor. In particular, to examine the influence of the CO₂ in pyrolysis of a tire, the pyrolytic products including C_1-5-hydrocarbons (HCs), volatile organic carbons (VOCs), and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) were evaluated qualitatively by gas chromatography (GC) with mass spectroscopy (MS) as well as with a thermal conductivity detector (TCD). The mass balance of the pyrolytic products under various pyrolytic conditions was established on the basis of their weight fractions of the pyrolytic products. Our experimental work experimentally validated that the amount of gaseous pyrolytic products increased when using CO₂ as a pyrolysis medium, while substantially altering the production of pyrolytic oil in absolute content (7.3-17.2%) and in relative composition (including PAHs and VOCs). Thus, the co-feeding of CO₂ in the pyrolysis process can be considered an environmentally benign and energy efficient process. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) Grant funded by the Korean Government (MSIP) (No. 2914RA1A004893 ). The third author acknowledges partial support made by a grant from the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) ( No. 2009-0093848 ).