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Fate of microplastic during pyrolysis of sewage sludge

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) 2024 Score: 45 ? 0–100 AI score estimating relevance to the microplastics field. Papers below 30 are filtered from public browse.
Manish Chaudhary, Surendra Suthar

Summary

Researchers investigated what happens to microplastics embedded in sewage sludge when sludge is treated by pyrolysis, a high-temperature thermochemical process. Pyrolysis effectively destroyed most microplastic particles, but some residual polymer-derived compounds partitioned into the pyrolysis products.

The accumulation of microplastics (MP) in sewage sludge (SS) poses a significant environmental challenge, with potential repercussions on ecosystems and human health. Pyrolysis, a thermochemical conversion process, has emerged as a promising technique for mitigating MP contamination in SS. We investigated the fate of MP during the pyrolysis (350°C, 500°C, 750°C and 950°C) of SS. SS was collected from local WWTPs and initial MP load and their polymer types were estimated and then further pyrolyzed to see the changes that occurred during thermochemical conversion. MP load in SS reduced significantly with pyrolysis temperature increments: 30.8 Also see: https://micro2024.sciencesconf.org/559711/document

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