Issue 1, 2015

Low-temperature microwave-assisted pyrolysis of waste office paper and the application of bio-oil as an Al adhesive

Abstract

The conversion of waste office paper (printed or photocopied) to bio-oil via low temperature (<200 °C) microwave-assisted pyrolysis, and its utilisation as an adhesive for aluminium–aluminium bonding are reported. The yields for the organic and aqueous phase bio-oil are 19% and 23%, respectively. The pyrolysis products were characterized by ICP-MS, ATR-IR, GC-MS and NMR to reveal broad categories of compounds indicative of sugars (carbohydrates), aromatics and carbonyl-containing moieties. Application of the organic phase bio-oil (70 mg) to Al plates (50 mm × 50 mm) followed by curing at different temperatures and time periods revealed that a maximum tensile strength of approximately 2300 N could be attained at 160 °C for 8 h cure. Also, at a fixed temperature, the tensile strength increased with increasing curing time. To gain an in-depth understanding of the adhesive properties of bio-oil, a liquid–liquid fractionation of the organic phase bio-oil was conducted. The ‘acidic’ fraction showed far better adhesion properties than the ‘neutral’ fraction with no bonding achieved for the aqueous fraction. A combination of the ‘acidic’ and ‘neutral’ fraction gave better adhesion, thus suggesting a possible synergistic or co-operative effect.

Graphical abstract: Low-temperature microwave-assisted pyrolysis of waste office paper and the application of bio-oil as an Al adhesive

Supplementary files

Article information

Article type
Paper
Submitted
29 Apr 2014
Accepted
15 Aug 2014
First published
15 Aug 2014

Green Chem., 2015,17, 260-270

Author version available

Low-temperature microwave-assisted pyrolysis of waste office paper and the application of bio-oil as an Al adhesive

Z. Zhang, D. J. Macquarrie, M. De bruyn, V. L. Budarin, A. J. Hunt, M. J. Gronnow, J. Fan, P. S. Shuttleworth, J. H. Clark and A. S. Matharu, Green Chem., 2015, 17, 260 DOI: 10.1039/C4GC00768A

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