The impact of COVID-19 has boosted growth in the takeaway and medical industries but has also generated a large amount of plastic waste. Peanut shells (PS) are produced in large quantities and are challenging to recycle in China. Co-pyrolysis of peanut shells (PS) and polypropylene (PP) is an effective method for processing plastic waste and energy mitigation. Thermogravimetric analysis was conducted on PS, PP, and their blends (PS-PP) at different heating rates (10, 20, 30 °C·min-1). The results illustrated that the co-pyrolysis process of PS-PP was divided into two distinct decomposition stages. The first stage (170-400 °C) was predominantly linked to PS decomposition. The second stage (400-520 °C) resulted from the combinations of PS and PP's thermal degradations, with the most contribution from PP degradation. With the increase in heating rate, thermogravimetric hysteresis appeared. Kinetic analysis indicated that the co-pyrolysis process reduced the individual pyrolysis activation energy, especially in the second stage, with a correlation coefficient (R2) generally maintained above 0.95. The multi-level reaction mechanism function model can effectively reveal the co-pyrolysis process mechanism. PS proved to be high-quality biomass for co-pyrolysis with PP, and all mixtures exhibited synergistic effects at a mixing ratio of 1:1 (PS1-PP1). This study accomplished effective waste utilization and optimized energy consumption. It holds significance in determining the interaction mechanism of mixed samples in the co-pyrolysis process.
Keywords: activation energy; co-pyrolysis process; heating rate; synergistic mechanism; thermogravimetry.