2023

Dahal, Roshi; Uusi-Kyyny, Petri; Pokki, Juha Pekka; Ohra-aho, Taina; Alopaeus, Ville

<p>This study presents experiments and modeling of batch distillation for the separation of styrene monomer from polystyrene pyrolysis oil. The bottoms obtained from the batch distillation was further fractionated applying a short-path distillation unit to study the separation efficiency of styrene from the polystyrene pyrolysis oil. GC-FID and GCMS were applied for the composition analysis of the polystyrene pyrolysis oil, distillate, and bottom fractions. Styrene monomer was obtained with a purity of 99.9 wt% from the batch distillation. The batch distillation was modeled employing the NRTL–RK thermodynamic model. A good agreement was achieved for the purity of styrene between the experimental analysis and model prediction. Additionally, a continuous distillation column was modeled for the scale-up of the process. Furthermore, viscosities and densities of the bottoms fraction were measured at the temperature range of 298–348 K.</p>