Microwave assisted pyrolysis of halogenated plastics recovered from waste computers

Microwave Assisted Pyrolysis (MAP) of the plastic fraction of Waste from 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 various different 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 the following different techniques: FT-IR ATR, 1H NMR and a quantitative GC–MS analysis. The liquid fractions showed low density and viscosity, together with a high concentration of useful chemicals such as styrene (up to 117.7 mg/mL), xylenes (up to 25.6 mg/mL for p-xylene) whereas halogenated compounds were absent or present in a very low amounts.