THERMAL ANALYSIS OF MULTI-WALLED CARBON NANOTUBES MATERIAL OBTAINED BY CATALYTIC PYROLYSIS OF POLYETHYLENE

Chemical recycling of non-biodegradable postconsumer polymers represents a promising route for the conversion of waste plastics into feedstock for fuel, chemicals and materials production. Recently, waste plastics have been used as low cost feedstock for carbon nanotubes growth. In this work, the thermal behavior of multi-walled carbon nanotubes material (MWCNTs) obtained by catalytic pyrolysis of waste low-density polyethylene was analyzed. Following the improved protocol, developed a few years ago for the thermal analysis of CNTs, thermogravimetric analysis of the MWCNTs material has been performed using heating rates of 2-20 degrees C. min(-1) and curve fitting method in an attempt to quantify the complex oxidation behavior of the material. It has been shown that competitive oxidation/combustion processes greatly influence the DTG curves and the number of fitted peaks.