Mechanistic exploration of polytetrafluoroethylene thermal plasma gasification through multiscale simulation coupled with experimental validation

The ever-growing quantities of persistent Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) wastes, along with consequential ecological and human health concerns, stimulate the need for alternative PTFE disposal method. The central research challenge lies in elucidating the decomposition mechanism of PTFE during high-temperature waste treatment. Here, we propose the PTFE microscopic thermal decomposition pathways by integrating plasma gasification experiments with multi-scale simulations strategies. Molecular dynamic simulations reveal a pyrolysis—oxidation & chain-shortening—deep defluorination (POCD) degradation pathway in an oxygen atmosphere, and an F abstraction—hydrolysis—deep defluorination (FHD) pathway in a steam atmosphere. Density functional theory computations demonstrate the vital roles of 1O2 and ·H radicals in the scission of PTFE carbon skeleton, validating the proposed pathways. Experimental results confirm the simulation results and show that up to 80.12% of gaseous fluorine can be recovered through plasma gasification within 5 min, under the optimized operating conditions determined through response surface methodology.