Related Experiment Video
Updated: Oct 9, 2025

Evaluation of Integrated Anaerobic Digestion and Hydrothermal Carbonization for Bioenergy Production
Published on: June 15, 2014
Component additivity model for plastics-biomass mixtures during hydrothermal liquefaction in sub-, near-, and
Mahadevan Subramanya Seshasayee1, Rachel Stofanak1, Phillip E Savage1
1Chemical Engineering Department, Pennsylvania State University, 121D CBE Building, University Park, PA 16802, USA.
Abstract:
We produced oils via hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL) of binary mixtures of biomass components (e.g., lignin, cellulose, starch) with different plastics and binary mixtures of plastics themselves. Cellulose, starch, and lignin demonstrated synergistic interactions (i.e., enhanced oil yields) with the plastics tested (polypropylene, polycarbonate, polystyrene, and polyethylene terephthalate). Polystyrene exhibited synergy during HTL with the three other plastics as did polypropylene during HTL with PET or PC. We used the experimental results to develop the first component-additivity model that predicts the oil yields from HTL of biomass-plastic and plastic-plastic mixtures. The model accounts for interactions among and between biomass components and plastic components in sub-, near-, and supercritical water. The model predicts 88% of 48 published oil yields from HTL experiments with mixtures containing plastics to within 10 wt%.
More Related Videos
11:44Qualitative Characterization of the Aqueous Fraction from Hydrothermal Liquefaction of Algae Using 2D Gas Chromatography with Time-of-flight Mass Spectrometry
Published on: March 6, 2016
07:30Fast Pyrolysis of Biomass Residues in a Twin-screw Mixing Reactor
Published on: September 9, 2016
Related Concept Videos
Superplasticizers
Cycloaddition Reactions: MO Requirements for Thermal Activation
Electrophilic Addition of HX to 1,3-Butadiene: Thermodynamic vs Kinetic Control
Step-Growth Polymerization: Overview
Many natural and synthetic polymers are produced by...
Thermochemical Equations
Thermal Sigmatropic Reactions: Overview
Sigmatropic shifts are classified based on an order term [i, j ], where i and j indicate the number of atoms across which each end of the σ bond migrates. Below are examples of a [3,3] sigmatropic shift in...