Comprehensive and sustainable recycling of polymer nanocomposites
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-28-2011
Abstract
A coupled process to recycle the polystyrene (PS) polymer nanocomposites (PNCs) is introduced to synthesize ferromagnetic core@shell Ni@C nanoparticles (NPs) and simultaneously to produce useful chemical radicals or liquid fuels. The PNCs reinforced with core@shell Ni@NiO NPs are prepared by the solvent extraction method. The Ni@NiO NPs are found to have significant catalytic effects on the pyrolysis of PS. The pyrolysis pathway changes from radical generation and β-scission for PS to radical generation, recombination and hydrogenation for the PNCs. Gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS) results confirm the same gas products from pure PS and its Ni@NiO PNCs. However, for the liquid products, more saturated products were obtained from the PNCs than those from pure PS due to the catalytic hydrogenation of the Ni NPs. A significantly large magnetization (25.0 emu g-1), anti-corrosion and high specific surface area (236.68 m2 g-1) were observed in the formed core-shell NPs. © 2011 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Publication Source (Journal or Book title)
Journal of Materials Chemistry
First Page
16239
Last Page
16246
Recommended Citation
Zhu, J., Wei, S., Li, Y., Pallavkar, S., Lin, H., Haldolaarachchige, N., Luo, Z., Young, D., & Guo, Z. (2011). Comprehensive and sustainable recycling of polymer nanocomposites. Journal of Materials Chemistry, 21 (40), 16239-16246. https://doi.org/10.1039/c1jm13044g