(612c) Modeling for Hydrothermal Valorization of Biomass and Waste Plastics

Reactions in and with hot compressed water can break the chemical linkages in both biopolymers (e.g., protein, polysaccharide) and synthetic polymers (e.g., polyethylene terephthalate, polycarbonate) to produce smaller, fuel-range molecules. Thus, hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) is a technological approach that can be used to valorize waste biomass and waste plastics, either separately or together.

This presentation will focus on the models that have been developed for HTL of waste feedstocks. One set of models aims to correlate or predict outcomes from HTL (e.g., yields of different product fractions). This set includes component-additivity models, reaction engineering models, and machine learning models. We will provide an assessment of published models of each type using an extensive data set of product yields compiled from the literature. We then show that reparameterization of modified models using the larger data set provides even better fidelity to experimental reports. Finally, we will discuss a reaction engineering model that can faithfully correlate and predict product yields for HTL of biomass-plastics mixtures.