Effect of Pyrolysis on the Wettability Behaviour of Polyethylene Terephthalate on Petroleum Coke SHARIFAH SHAHNAZ Syed Bakar 1,a , RITA Khanna 2,b , Veena Sahajwalla 2,c , Kamarudin Hussin 1,d , Nik Noriman Zulkepli 1,e and Sam Sung Ting 3,f 1 School of Materials Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Kompleks Pusat Pengajian Jejawi 2, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia 2 Centre for Sustainable Materials Research & Technology, School of Materials Science & Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney 2052, NSW Australia 3 School of Bioprocess Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Perlis, Kompleks Pusat Pengajian Jejawi 3, 02600 Arau, Perlis, Malaysia. a shahnaz@unimap.edu.my, b ritakhanna@unsw.edu.au, c veena@unsw.edu.au, d kamarudin@unimap.edu.my, e niknoriman@unimap.edu.my, f stsam@unimap.edu.my, Keywords: Pyrolysis; Polyethylene Terephthalate; Petroleum Coke; Wettability; Time; Temperature Abstract. In depth investigations has been carried out on thermoplastic polymers, polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The interaction between PET and PC substrate was studied to investigate the effect of oxygen-containing polymer on the polymer melt wetting properties. The effect of two main parameters, temperature ranging from 300°C to 400°C and time from 30 min to 60 min on the polymer properties and the effect of petroleum coke presence on the degradation process of polymer have been characterized. PET has showed high wettability and deep penetration of melt flow into petroleum coke substrate, which increased as time and temperature were increased. Introduction Plastics production and usage has grown significantly in the last 30 years and continued future growth is expected. Due to the relatively short life spans of plastic goods, there has been a tremendous growth in the generation of plastic wastes. Post-consumer plastic wastes are projected to increase to 30 million tonnes in the USA alone with the worldwide waste generation levels being much higher [1]. Recent developments include the commercial utilisation of waste plastics in the power industry and in blast furnaces in Japan, Korea and Germany [2]. There is a scope to develop novel uses for polymeric wastes as a carbon source in consumable carbon anodes for the aluminium industry. Alumina is dissolved in a molten cryolite bath, and an electric current is passed through the solution, thereby separating alumina in to aluminium and oxygen. The oxygen immediately reacts with the carbon anodes to produce carbon dioxide as an off-gas. The process consumes large amounts of sacrificial carbon from the anodes which are lowered to maintain a constant distance between the anode and the surface of metal pool (part of the cathode); therefore prebaked anodes must be replaced regularly. Therefore, the new lower cost, robust anodes with performance superior to that of current anodes, with extended life, decreased CO 2 emissions and improved sustainability needs to be developed. The aim of this paper is to develop consumable carbon anodes for the aluminium industry using waste plastics. The carbon anode is manufactured by baking of a blend of some varieties of coke with hydrocarbon binder, which is generally a coal-tar pitch [3]. Since PET is one of the waste plastics that are rich in carbon and have low impurity levels, it has a potential to be used as a cheap, readily available, auxiliary source of carbon. Advanced Materials Research Vol. 626 (2013) pp 1015-1019 Online available since 2012/Dec/27 at www.scientific.net © (2013) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMR.626.1015 All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of TTP, www.ttp.net. (ID: 128.173.127.127, Virginia Tech University, University Libraries, Blacksburg, USA-31/08/14,15:30:18)