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Updated: Nov 26, 2025

Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass Residues in a Twin-screw Mixing Reactor
Published on: September 9, 2016
On the Method of Pulse-Heated Analysis of Solid Reactions (PHASR) for Polyolefin Pyrolysis
Ali Zolghadr1, Nathan Sidhu1, Isaac Mastalski1
1University of Minnesota, Department of Chemical Engineering & Materials Science, 421 Washington Ave. SE, Minneapolis, MN, 55455, USA.
Abstract:
The continued need for plastics necessitates an effective solution for processing and recycling polymer wastes. While pyrolysis is a promising technology for polyolefin recycling, an experimental apparatus must be designed to measure the intrinsic kinetics and elucidate the chemistry of the plastics pyrolysis process. To resolve this issue, a modified Pulse-Heated Analysis of Solid Reactions (PHASR) system was designed, constructed, and evaluated for the purposes of polyolefin pyrolysis. Experimental results demonstrated that the new PHASR system is capable of measuring the millisecond-resolved evolution of plastic [e. g., low-density polyethylene (LDPE)] pyrolysis products at a constant temperature. The PHASR system was shown to be capable of producing a repeatable, fast heating time (20 ms) and cooling time (130-150 ms), and of maintaining a stable temperature during reaction. A second, Visual PHASR system was developed to enable high-speed photography and visualization of the real-time pyrolysis of LDPE.
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