Multi-Scale Modeling of Plastic Waste Gasification: Opportunities and Challenges.

Among the different thermo-chemical recycling routes for plastic waste valorization, gasification is one of the most promising, converting plastic waste into syngas (H+CO) and energy in the presence of an oxygen-rich gas. Plastic waste gasification is associated with many different complexities due to the multi-scale nature of the process, the feedstock complexity (mixed polyolefins with different contaminations), intricate reaction mechanisms, plastic properties (melting behavior and molecular weight distribution), and complex transport phenomena in a multi-phase flow system. Hence, creating a reliable model calls for an extensive understanding of the phenomena at all scales, and more advanced modeling approaches than those applied today are required.