SEMINAR

• Joint Session with the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering

In this presentation I will discuss different approaches to improve the sustainability of the plastics industry that the Huber group has worked on. The Center for Upcycling of Waste Plastics (www.cuwp.org) is developing the scientific, engineering, and economic information that will enable the chemical recycling of wastes plastics. CUWP involves 23 industrial partners, 1 national laboratory and 5 universities throughout North America. CUWP is studying three technologies for plastic recycling: 1) mechanical recycling; 2) thermal depolymerization and 3) solvent targeted recovery and precipitation (STRAP). In addition, we are accessing the advantages and limitations of the current plastic recycling infrastructure. Thermal depolymerization involves heating the plastics, in the absence of air produces a plastic oil. We are combining our experimental data with molecular modeling to develop mechanistically based models for pyrolysis. The plastic oils can then be catalytically upgraded to different plastic monomers, alcohols, amines and carboxylic acids. STRAP uses solvents to selectively solubilize targeted plastics from multi layer plastic or plastic mixtures. These plastics are then precipitated from the solvent and can be re-used.
A final approach is to create new types of biodegradable plastics from novel biomass-monomers. Biomass has a high oxygen content making it a useful feedstock for oxygenated monomers. The monomers include α,ω-diols, di-acids, a triol and a tetrol. Rigorous techno-economic analysis indicates that these monomers can be cost competitive and even cheaper than petroleum-derived oxygenated monomers depending on the scale that they are produced. For example, furfural can undergo a series of 4 reactions to produce 1,5 pentanediol (1,5 PDO) which is being commercialized by Pyran (www.pyranco.com). These new biomass-based monomers are being used to create biodegradable polyesters that can replace polyolefins in packaging applications.