Effect of Microstructure of High Density Polyethylene on Catalytic Degradation: A Comparison Between Nano Clay and FCC

The effect of microstructure of high density polyethylene (HDPE) on catalytic degradation over fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) catalyst and Nano clay is investigated. An ethylene/1-hexene copolymer (HDPE) was fractionated based on 1-hexene content to different fractions using preparative temperature rising elution fractionation (P-TREF) method. The short chain branch (SCB) content of each fraction calculated based on H-1 NMR results. The homogenous SCB content fractions were subsequently analyzed using TGA and thermal degradation behavior of samples were compared with catalytic degradation. The results showed that FCC, in contrast to nano clay, is more sensitive to microstructure of HDPE during catalytic degradation. Therefore, linear chains can start degradation sooner on FCC than the branched chains. In comparison of nano clay and FCC it was found that the nano clay, reduces temperature at maximum degradation rate (T-max), but FCC reduces the T-5% and T-max significantly.