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Ms. Somayeh Mansouri Completes an Engaging Thesis
In September 2022, Ms. Somayeh Mansouri successfully completed her master's thesis titled "Experimental Investigation and Numerical Simulation of the Gross Kinetics of Polystyrene Pyrolysis on a Pilot Scale."
Ms. Mansouri is pursuing a master's degree in Environmental Process Engineering at Clausthal University of Technology and, as part of her thesis, has been researching the thermal recycling of polystyrene with her advisor, Jana Zimmermann.
Polystyrene is one of the most commonly used plastics in our society. Several million metric tons of polystyrene waste are generated each year, as the plastic is often used only once as packaging or insulation material.
One way to reuse this waste as a resource is through pyrolysis. In this process, the waste is heated in the absence of oxygen and thermally broken down into gaseous products and oils. These can then be recycled as part of a circular economy.
Many kinetic models for the pyrolysis of plastics are already available in the literature, including those for the pyrolysis of polystyrene. However, the kinetic experiments are determined via thermogravimetric analyses on a laboratory scale. These thermogravimetric analyzers use sample quantities in the range of a few milligrams. This allows the degradation kinetics to be described under minimal heat transfer and diffusion effects, enabling the identification of optimal process conditions. On an industrial scale, however, sample quantities ranging from several kilograms to metric tons are processed, meaning that heat transfer plays a significant role in process design. This cannot currently be accounted for using pyrolysis kinetics, which means direct scalability is not possible.
To visualize scale effects, Ms. Mansouri conducted pyrolysis experiments at the IEVB using the Technical Thermobalance, which can process sample quantities of up to one kilogram. Using a numerical simulation of the heating process, Ms. Mansouri was able to show how the temperature distribution within the polymer sample changes over the course of the degradation process and thus determine gross kinetics that describe the chemical degradation processes while taking heat lag effects into account. Ms. Mansouri’s work thus offers a way to describe pyrolysis processes across various length scales.
The IEVB extends its warmest congratulations to Ms. Mansouri on her outstanding master’s thesis and wishes her every success in her future career.
