@misc{9229310,
  abstract     = {{Global plastic waste production has more than doubled in the past two decades, with plastic packaging accounting for 40% in 2019. Due to low recycling rates, pollution and limited fossil resources, increasing circularity in the plastic industry has become increasingly important. Chemical recycling through pyrolysis, unlike mechanical recycling, can treat contaminated, mixed plastic waste and increase circularity by producing hydrocarbons appropriate for re-polymerization. 

A coupled CFD-DEM model was employed to investigate heat transfer in a rotary kiln reactor, simulating pyrolysis of three plastics. Polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP), two common plastics found in post-consumer waste, were studied combined with polyAl, the residual material from recycling of Tetra Pak's paper-based food packaging. The study focused on evaluating heating patterns of plastic mixes and assessing the potential of polyAl, due to its aluminium content, to act as a heat carrier. 

PE was found to have the lowest volumetric heat capacity and highest thermal diffusivity, making this a better heat carrier material than polyAl. PolyAl required the most energy to heat, resulting in lower average particle temperatures at all times compared to PP and PE. Five cases with different particle mixes were run to observe how particle interactions affect particle heating patterns. PE and polyAl experienced decreased heating rates when mixed with other particle types. PP experienced very small changes in heating rates that may fall within numerical uncertainties of the simulations. 

Additionally, CFD-DEM showed good potential for R&D work of chemical recycling. Further work to achieve an accurate multi-scale process model, resolving chemical reactions and internal particle heat transfer, was identified.}},
  author       = {{Belcher, Ellen Che}},
  issn         = {{0282-1990}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  note         = {{Student Paper}},
  title        = {{CFD-DEM simulation for Advanced Chemical Recycling of Mixed Plastic Waste}},
  year         = {{2026}},
}