Energy vinyl chloride monomer process

Recycling of plastic materials becomes more important, but it is not possible to make materials of the same quality as virgin materials. For PVC this problem is even more pronounced than for other plastics. For this reason, a process was studied which is able to destroy the waste PVC but which can recover its most important component, chlorine, as a raw material for vinyl chloride monomer manufacture with a very high yield. Most of the energy contained in the PVC can be recovered as electrical power and steam. 4 refs. 

The current trend for vinyl chloride monomers is toward ethylene as the hydrocarbon raw material, replacing electrochemical acetylene, and it promises to continue. Electrochemical acetylene will be phased out almost completely, except in special cases. The high activation energy level required for forming the acetylene triple bond precludes design of a low cost process for its formation. In addition, the difficulties encountered in handling such a highly reactive material will deter its use. 

The essential disadvantage of vinyl chloride monomer is associated with the presence of chlorine in its molecule, which, directly and often indirectly in the event that hydrochloric acid is used, results from the electrolysis of sodium chloride, a process known to be highly energy-intensive. 

Stoicescu and Dimonie103 studied the polymerization of 2-vinylfuran with iodine in methylene chloride between 20 and 50 °C. The time-conversion curves were not analysed for internal orders but external orders with respect to catalyst and monomer were both unity. Together with an overall activation energy of 2.5 kcal/mole for the polymerization process, these were the only data obtained. Observations about the low DP s of the products, their dark colour, their lack of bound iodine and the presence of furan rings in the oligomers, inferred by infrared spectra (not reported), completed the experimental evidence. The authors proposed a linear, vinylic structure for the polymer, and a true cationic mechanism for its formation and discussed the occurrence of an initial charge-transfer complex on the... 

---