Catalytic Upgrading of Pyrolysis Wax Oil Obtained from Waxed Corrugated Cardboard Using Zeolite Y Catalyst

About 5% of all corrugated cardboard is coated with wax to enhance performance under humid conditions. Waxed cardboard is unrecyclable. The authors have previously shown that the wax can be effectively recovered using pyrolysis. The main compounds found in wax oil obtained from pyrolysis of waxed cardboard were alkanes, alkenes, and dienes (C-9 to C-36). In this work, recovered wax and wax oil samples were thermally and catalytically pyrolyzed on a custom-made small tubular batch reactor, and the resultant liquid products were analyzed (GCMS, FTIR, and ESI-MS) against gasoline to evaluate their performance as a transport fuel. The products of thermal pyrolysis of the samples are mainly composed of dienes and short-chain olefins, oxygenated compounds, and minor amounts of aromatic compounds. Their functional groups resembled those found in paraffin. The analyses revealed that the liquid products of catalytic pyrolysis had chemical and functional group profiles similar to gasoline (e.g., methylbenzenes). The addition of zeolite Y as the catalyst facilitated the conversion of long-chain hydrocarbons to short-chain alkanes and aromatics. The monomer-to-oligomer ratio of the liquid products also increased significantly after catalytic pyrolysis.