IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v334y2025ics0360544225034012.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Low-temperature microwave co-pyrolysis of medical waste and walnut shells: effective regulation of organic chlorine to inorganic chlorine conversion in pyrolyzed char

Author

Listed:
  • Fu, Wenjun
  • Sun, Jiaman
  • Luo, Juan
  • Tao, Jinlin
  • Liu, Runjie
  • Luo, Jiangyi
  • Liu, Yanxi
  • Sun, Shichang
  • Ji, Fei
  • Zhang, Wei
  • Ma, Rui

Abstract

To regulate the migration and transformation of chlorine in the pyrolysis process of medical waste, this study utilized microwave pyrolysis technology for co-pyrolyzing medical gloves (MG) with walnut shells (WS). Furthermore, we innovatively combined microwave thermogravimetry to explore the migration and transformation mechanisms of chlorine under varying temperatures and mix ratios. Under microwave pyrolysis alone, the chlorine in MG mainly existed in the form of HCl and organic chlorine in oil. When WS was added, the chlorine element in HCl migrated to the char, while the organic chlorine in the char was converted to inorganic chlorine. Under optimal microwave co-pyrolysis conditions, the chlorine content in pyrolysis oil decreased to ∼5 %, while chlorine fixation by pyrolysis char reached 65.63 mg/g, a 35.45 mg/g increase compared to MG pyrolysis alone. Through the characterization of pyrolysis char, it was found that the metal oxides in WS could absorb HCl and immobilize it in the form of metal chlorides in the char, thus effectively reducing the generation of HCl. This study successfully achieved efficient fixation of chlorine while improving the quality of pyrolysis oil and gas, which provides a new idea for the thermal treatment and resource recycling of PVC-containing medical waste.

Suggested Citation

  • Fu, Wenjun & Sun, Jiaman & Luo, Juan & Tao, Jinlin & Liu, Runjie & Luo, Jiangyi & Liu, Yanxi & Sun, Shichang & Ji, Fei & Zhang, Wei & Ma, Rui, 2025. "Low-temperature microwave co-pyrolysis of medical waste and walnut shells: effective regulation of organic chlorine to inorganic chlorine conversion in pyrolyzed char," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 334(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:334:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225034012
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2025.137759
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544225034012
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2025.137759?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:334:y:2025:i:c:s0360544225034012. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.