Chemical Recycling of Mixed Plastic Wastes by Pyrolysis – Pilot Scale Investigations

Abstract Chemical recycling of plastic wastes can be a useful complement to mechanical recycling to achieve the required plastics recycling rates and to establish a circular economy that is climate neutral and resource‐efficient. Different mixed plastic wastes that are subject to future recycling efforts are studied under uniform conditions of intermediate pyrolysis characterized by a medium heating rate and pyrolysis temperature. Product distributions and selected product properties are determined, and process mass and energy balances are derived. Product yields and compositions are highly dependent on the waste pyrolyzed. The results show that pyrolysis is a suitable process to recover chemical feedstock from various complex mixed plastic wastes.