The quantity of textile waste has been increased significantly in the recent years and a considerable
portion of this waste has been sent to landfills, causing environmental issues. This research has been
carried out to address this issue and propose a method for textile waste conversion to useful
commodities such as chemicals or biofuels with potential of application in a commercial scale.
Wool was selected as feedstock while gasification and pyrolysis were selected as the technologies
with potential to facilitate the achievement of the objectives. Pyrolysis and gasification were carried
out in bench-scale fixed bed reactor to check the feasibility of the pyrolysis for textile waste
conversion. Furthermore, model compounds representing textile waste were pyrolysed with and
without catalysts to evaluate if the properties of products could be modified.
5 different catalysts were used for pyrolysis of lignin, cellulose, and phenylalanine. The results
indicated that Al-KIL2 and 20-ZSM5 had the potential to modify the properties of wool pyrolysis
by-products and were used in wool pyrolysis in fixed bed. This decision was based on the increase
in quantity of aromatics obtained in the oil products in based on the GC-MS analysis results.
High CO content of gas, char product properties and marketable products such as phenols in the
oil obtained in pyrolysisand gasification using fixed bed reactor proved that these technologies were
promising. Therefore, a novel scaled-up system (auger reactor) for textile waste pyrolysis was
designed, built, and modified.
Comparing the findings of the gasification/pyrolysis of wool in the fixed bed and auger reactor, the
conversion of feedstock to volatiles seemed to be more efficient in fixed bed while the properties
of the char did not vary significantly. Regarding the oil products, while phenols and indoles were
the prominent product in the fixed bed, ketones, nitriles and quinolines were the main products in
the auger reactor.
Overall, the results indicated that up to 2 kg/h of textile waste feedstock on its own (without
mixing with other material) can be pyrolysed/gasified in this system and by-products could be
collected successfully. Furthermore, it was observed that residence time, heating rate and product
collection method have been the main contributor for the difference between the small scale and
scaled-up tests
