Towards the upgrading of plastic pyrolysis oil: Understanding of the competitive reactions during hydrodechlorination

IFP Energies nouvelles (IFPEN) est un acteur majeur de la recherche et de la formation dans les domaines de l’énergie, du transport et de l’environnement. De la recherche à l’industrie, l’innovation technologique est au cœur de son action, articulée autour de quatre priorités stratégiques : Mobilité Durable, Energies Nouvelles, Climat / Environnement / Economie circulaire et Hydrocarbures Responsables.

Dans le cadre de la mission d’intérêt général confiée par les pouvoirs publics, IFPEN concentre ses efforts sur :

• l’apport de solutions aux défis sociétaux de l’énergie et du climat, en favorisant la transition vers une mobilité durable et l’émergence d’un mix énergétique plus diversifié ;
• la création de richesse et d’emplois, en soutenant l’activité économique française et européenne et la compétitivité des filières industrielles associées.

Partie intégrante d’IFPEN, l’école d’ingénieurs IFP School prépare les générations futures à relever ces défis.

Towards the upgrading of plastic pyrolysis oil: Understanding of the competitive reactions during hydrodechlorination.

In the context of circular economy, chemical recycling via pyrolysis is a promising route to convert plastic and tire wastes into oil, which can be further processed by steam cracker or refining processes to produce chemicals (for chemical and polymer industry) or fuels.

The presence of chlorine in pyrolysis oils is a major concern for the upgrading processes: deactivation of catalysts, fouling, corrosion, and environmental issue. Thus, the dechlorination by hydrotreatment of pyrolysis oils is necessary prior to the upgrading processes.

Due to the presence of various contaminants (nitrogen, olefins, diolefins, sulfur, oxygen) in pyrolytic oils, the dechlorination is impacted by parallel effects (inhibition, competitive adsorption, and recombination of HCl with olefins and nitrogen compounds). The understanding of these phenomena is important to carry out innovations on catalysts and processes for the improvement of dechlorination and to predict the performance of dechlorination.

Description :

The objective of the internship is to understand the competitive phenomena occurring during the hydrodechlorination of 1-chlorohexane in the presence of other reactants (chloroaromatics, oxygenated compounds, oxygenated chloroaromatics, and nitrogen-containing compounds), with a focus on both thermodynamic and kinetic aspects.

For that, the internship will focus on the experimentation section. The experiments will be performed in fixed bed reactor. Advanced analytical techniques will be used to characterize the feeds and the effluents.

List of tasks:

• Task 1: bibliographic study.
• Task 2: experimental tests on model molecules and result interpretation.

Required profile :

English or French, curiosity, enthusiasm, autonomy.

Strong background in kinetics and chemistry with aptitude and interest in heterogeneous catalysis.