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A green recycling approach to obtain nano and microparticles from expanded polystyrene waste Satish Chandra Hari Mangalara, and Susy Varughese ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng., Just Accepted Manuscript • DOI: 10.1021/ acssuschemeng.6b01493 • Publication Date (Web): 10 Oct 2016 Downloaded from http://pubs.acs.org on October 17, 2016
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ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering
A green recycling approach to obtain nano and microparticles from expanded polystyrene waste Satish Chandra Hari Mangalara and Susy Varughesea a
Department of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, Chennai -
600036, India, email:
[email protected],
[email protected] KEYWORDS: Expanded polystyrene, d-Limonene, Emulsification-diffusion, Polystyrene particles, Polyvinyl alcohol. Abstract
In this study, we develop a completely green process which could generate a recycled and value added product of polystyrene (PS), such as micro-and nano-sized particles, from waste expanded PS (EPS). The process uses the eco-friendly solvent, d-limonene for dissolving waste EPS. We show the first time use of water as a non-solvent for the recovery of micro- and nano-sized PS particles based on an emulsification-diffusion method. Water forms a low boiling azeotrope with d-limonene and reduces the operating temperatures significantly. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA), a water soluble polymer is used for stabilizing the oil-water emulsion and to control the particle size. The obtained particles were characterized using scanning electron microscope (SEM), FTIR and dynamic light scattering (DLS) techniques. Effect of PS and PVA concentrations, stirring speed and oil to water (o/w) ratio on the yield and particle size were investigated. The spent
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solvent was recovered using a distillation process which was carried out along with the emulsification-diffusion making the process more efficient and sustainable.
Introduction Expanded polystyrene (EPS) is one of the most widely produced commodity polymer products in the world due to its versatile application in different fields.1 Expanded polystyrene has a thermal conductivity coefficient of 0.03W/mK which has led to the wide usage of it for thermal insulation purposes.2 Another major application is in packaging for food, electronic goods, and other fragile materials due to its low density. Expanded polystyrene, often used in packaging contains 98% air and 2% polystyrene is voluminous, takes up large space in landfills and is non-biodegradable. It is also a major component of urban litter and marine debris. Since it has very low density (
