Recovery material from a new designed surgical face mask: A complementary approach based on mechanical and thermo-chemical recycling

Autor: Giulio Occasi, Doina De Angelis, Marco Scarsella, Marco Tammaro, Letizia Tuccinardi, Riccardo Tuffi
Přispěvatelé: Occasi, G., De Angelis, D., Scarsella, M., Tammaro, M., Tuccinardi, L., Tuffi, R.
Rok vydání: 2022
Předmět:
Zdroj: Journal of Environmental Management. 324:116341
ISSN: 0301-4797
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116341
Popis: The usage of disposable face mask to control the spread of COVID-19 disease has led to the alarming generation of a huge amount of plastic waste in a short span of time. On other hand, face masks are made of high-quality thermoplastic polymers that could be recovered and converted into valuable products. The aim of this study is to investigate a complementary approach for the recycling of face mask in lab-scale plants: the mechanical recycling of the filter in polypropylene (PP) and the chemical recycling of the whole face mask. For this purpose, a new designed surgical face mask was chemically and physically characterized. The results shows that the face mask was composed of 92.3 wt% high grade PP (filter), very similar to virgin PP but with a high melt volume index (MVI, 385 cm3/10 min) due to its non-woven manufacturing. The PP from face mask was mixed with recycled virgin PP in order to obtain a MVI suitable for the extrusion process and recycled as filament for 3D printing. This filament was used to print a specimen with a very similar visual quality of that printed with a commercial PP filament. Simultaneously, the whole face mask underwent a pyrolysis process to produce new feedstocks or fuels. Low-cost catalysts derived from coal fly ash (CFA) were employed to enhance the production of light hydrocarbons. In particular, the synthetized acid X zeolite (HX/CFA) improved the yield of light fractions up to 91 wt% (79 wt% for thermal pyrolysis) and the quality of the light oil with the 85% of C6–C10 (55% for thermal pyrolysis). Furthermore, HX/CFA decreased the degradation temperature of PP to 384 °C versus 458 °C of thermal cracking.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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