Chemistry of hydrocarbon compounds – Production of hydrocarbon mixture from refuse or vegetation – From synthetic resin or rubber
Patent
1997-12-18
1999-08-24
Yildirim, Bekir L.
Chemistry of hydrocarbon compounds
Production of hydrocarbon mixture from refuse or vegetation
From synthetic resin or rubber
585832, 585648, C07C 422, C10G 110
Patent
active
059426497
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention generally relates to a method for thermally decomposing addition polymers into monomers and monomer fragments. In particular, monomer recovery can be obtained by excitation of an addition polymer with ultraviolet or infrared lasers or rapid heating thereby thermally decomposing the polymer into monomers and monomer fragments.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In general, the term polymer degradation is taken to mean reduction of molecular weight under the influence of thermal energy. Thermal degradation does not occur until the temperature is sufficiently high to separate chemical bonds but the particular path towards decomposition is mainly determined by the chemical structure of the polymer itself. The two types of polymer decomposition include chain depolymerization and random degradation. Random degradation is analogous to stepwise polymerization, the rupture or scission of the chain occurs at random points, leaving fragments that are usually large compared to a monomer unit. In contrast, chain depolymerization involves the successive release of monomer units from chain ends or weak links; it is often called depropagation or unzipping which is essentially the reverse of chain polymerization with depolymerization beginning at the ceiling temperature.
These two types of decomposition may occur separately or in combination, the latter case being more common. Decomposition may be initiated thermally or by ultraviolet radiation, may occur entirely randomly or at ends or other weak links in the polymer chain. While the products of random polymer degradation are likely to be a diverse mixture of fragments of fairly large molecular weight, chain depolymerization yields large quantities of monomer.
Pioneering work in polymer degradation was done by Madorsky and Strauss, (S. L. Madorsky, "Thermal Degradation of Organic Polymers", John Wiley and Sons, Chapters 3 and 4, (1964)), who found that many polymers such as polytetrafluoroethylene, polymethylmethacrylate and poly .alpha.-methyl styrene go back to their monomers upon heating, while others, like polyethylene, polymethylene and polypropylene, yield a large number of decomposition products.
Of all the hydrocarbon polymers, polyethylene has the highest ratio of hydrogen immediate on the backbone to carbon on the backbone and is the simplest in structure. On standard pyrolysis, this polymer decomposes to yield a spectrum of hydrocarbon fragments, saturated and unsaturated varying in molecular weight from about 16 to about 1200. Polyethylene only yields a small fraction of about 1% of monomer, indicating the absence of a unzipping mechanism in its decomposition. The process for thermal degradation for polyethylene is primarily random. It has been suggested that the decomposition mechanism involves the formation of free radicals and the abstraction of a hydrogen by those radicals.
The polymer decomposition mechanism involves several steps; initiation, propagation, free-radical transfer and termination. Inititation is a unimolecular process involving the rupture of the C--C bonds of a chain to yield free radicals. Depropagation is the reverse of the propagation step in addition polymerization and results in the formation of monomers at the free radical ends of the chains. However, in polyethylene, polymethylene and polypropylene, this step takes place very infrequently. There are two types of free radical transfer, intermolecular, in which a free radical abstracts a radical from another chain, and intramolecular in which the free radical abstracts a hydrogen from its own chain. The results in either case are the formation of one saturated end, one unsaturated end and a new free radical. Finally, termination occurs when two free radicals combine to form a polymer chain.
After the free radicals are formed in the initiation step, there are at least two competing reactions which may follow: 1) propagation to yield to monomer (unzipping), and 2) free radical transfer involving an abstraction of hydrogen from a polymer chain. Wh
REFERENCES:
patent: 5192580 (1993-03-01), Blanchet-Fincher
patent: 5216149 (1993-06-01), Evans et al.
patent: 5288528 (1994-02-01), Blanchet-Fincher
patent: 5326919 (1994-07-01), Paisley et al.
S. L. Madorsky, "Thermal Degradation of Organic Polymers", John Wiley & Sons, Chapters 3 & 4, 1964.
Blanchet-Fincher Graciela Beatriz
Fincher, Jr. Curtis Robinson
E. I. Du Pont de Nemours and Company
Yildirim Bekir L.
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