Mitigation of harmful chemical formation from pyrolysis of tobacco waste using CO2

Taewoo Lee; Sungyup Jung; Kun-Yi Andrew Lin; Yiu Fai Tsang; Eilhann E Kwon

doi:10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123416

Mitigation of harmful chemical formation from pyrolysis of tobacco waste using CO₂

J Hazard Mater. 2021 Jan 5:401:123416. doi: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123416. Epub 2020 Jul 7.

Authors

Taewoo Lee¹, Sungyup Jung¹, Kun-Yi Andrew Lin², Yiu Fai Tsang³, Eilhann E Kwon⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Environment and Energy, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea.
² Department of Environmental Engineering & Innovation and Development Center of Sustainable Agriculture & Research Center of Sustainable Energy and Nanotechnology, National Chung Hsing University, 250 Kuo-Kuang Road, Taichung, Taiwan.
³ Department of Science and Environmental Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, New Territories 999077, Hong Kong.
⁴ Department of Environment and Energy, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea. Electronic address: ekwon74@sejong.ac.kr.

PMID: 32763706
DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2020.123416

Abstract

Global consumption of tobacco has been continuously increasing. This results in the considerable generation of toxic waste materials from the tobacco industry and daily life. Conventional disposal methods for them (incineration and landfilling) could be a potential hazard for releasing carcinogens and toxins into our eco-system. Accordingly, an eco-friendly disposal platform for converting tobacco waste (TW) into syngas was mainly studied in this present work. To realize this, pyrolysis of two commercial cigarette products (Marlboro and HEETS (electronic cigarette)) was done under the CO₂/N₂ conditions. One of the main findings from the present study was that CO₂ reacted with volatile matters (VMs) obtained from the thermolysis of TW through the gas phase reactions (GPRs), which provided a strategic measure to manipulate carbon rearrangement of all pyrolysates. In particular, the GPRs expedited the carbon rearrangement of harmful chemical species, converting toxic chemicals into syngas. When the fraction of VMs in TWs increased, the GPR were more effective. Therefore, the introduced eco-friendly method using CO₂-mediated thermochemical process could be beneficial for energy recovery from TWs while mitigating the formations of harmful chemical species.

Keywords: Biochar; Carbon dioxide; Pyrolysis; Syngas; Tobacco waste; Waste-to-energy.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

Carbon Dioxide
Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems*
Nicotiana
Pyrolysis
Tobacco Products*

Substances

Carbon Dioxide