(642c) Hydroformylation of Plastic Pyrolysis Oils: A New Route to Produce Chemicals from Plastic Waste

Waste plastics are an abundant feedstock to produce renewable chemicals. Pyrolysis of waste plastics produces pyrolysis oils with high concentrations of olefins (>50 wt.%) which are the central building blocks of the chemical and polymer industry. The traditional petrochemical industry uses several energy-intensive steps to produce olefins from fossil feedstocks such as naphtha, natural gas and crude oil. It would be highly desirable to take advantage of the olefins in the plastic pyrolysis oil and produce value-added chemicals.

In this work, we demonstrate the conversion of post-consumer plastic wastes into high value chemicals using pyrolysis and hydroformylation. Hydroformylation of plastic pyrolysis oils produces aldehydes. These aldehydes can then be reduced to mono- and di-alcohols using heterogeneous catalysts. The feedstocks and the upgraded oils were characterized by the combination of two-dimensional (2D) Gas Chromatograph (GC×GC), one-dimensional (1D)/2D Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), as well as the Elemental CHNOS analysis. This route produces high-value ($1,500-5,000/ton) oxygenated chemicals from low-value post-consumer recycled polyethylene ($100/ton). The chemicals produced have 60% lower greenhouse gas emissions compared to their production via petroleum feedstocks.