MICROWAVE ASSISTED PYROLYSIS OF HALOGENATED PLASTICS RECOVERED FROM WASTE COMPUTERS

Microwave Assisted Pyrolysis (MAP) of the plastic fraction of Waste of Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) from end-life computers was run with different absorbers and set-ups in a multimode batch reactor. A large amount of liquid fractions (up to 76.6 wt%) were formed together with a remarkable reduction of the solid residue (up to 14.2 wt%). The liquid fractions were characterized using different techniques: FT-IR ATR, 1H-NMR and a quantitative GC-MS analysis. The liquid fractions showed low density and viscosity, high concentration of useful chemicals like styrene (up to 117.7 mg/mL), xylenes (up to 25.6 mg/mL for p-xylene) and halogenated compounds were absent or present in a very low amount.