The current scale of production of plastic bags and parts, as well as short-term and long-term problems caused by various waste disposal methods, has created a missed opportunity for the chemical recycling of polymers. Catalyst in tandem (Tandem) which has platinum with alumina support, which was used in a research to convert polyethylene into wax or oil. This experiment was performed without the presence of solvent or hydrogen molecules. The main products of this process are long chain alkyl aromatics and valuable alkyl naphthenes with about 30 carbons in the main chain. Considering that the two endothermic reactions of hydrogenolysis (breakage of hydrogen-hydrogen and hydrogen-carbon bonds) and the endothermic reaction of creating a ring; At the same time, it creates a thermodynamic equilibrium and the equilibrium temperature is reached at 280 degrees Celsius. This method shows how waste polyolefins can be a suitable raw material for the production of molecular hydrocarbon products.
In traditional processes, a product called BTX (benzene-toluene-xylene) is produced at a temperature of 500 to 600 degrees Celsius, which is converted into a linear alkylbenzene after the alkylation process. But in the process introduced in this article, the final product is produced from polyethylene waste in one step.