How do we ensure that we can reuse plastic packaging material? Or how can dyes in PET bottles be reused and contribute to making plastics circular? Two research projects within the Inorganic Chemistry & Catalysis Group at Utrecht University will start within the Making plastics circular: technical innovations programme, which is part of the National Growth Fund programme Circular Plastics NL. Six million euros were divided over ten projects in total, and all studies will last five years.
Currently, 15 percent of the one million tonnes of discarded plastics produced annually in the Netherlands are recycled at high quality. The goal is for all plastics to be recycled by 2030 and production to be fully circular by 2050. With the National Growth Fund programme Circular Plastics NL, the Dutch government is investing in bottlenecks to close the cycles for existing plastics, provide sustainable growth opportunities for the Dutch economy and use subsidies to accelerate the transition.
Read more about the Utrecht University projects that have received funding:
- Towards Circular Use of Pigments in the Recycling of Plastics - prof. dr. ir. B.M. Weckhuysen:
This research project aims to develop and use new technologies to recover inorganic and organic colorants from polyesters, in particular polyethylene terephthalate (PET) recycle streams, and reuse these colorants to synthesize recycled PET materials. The focus will be on widely used colorants in PET bottles, which are commercially interesting. However, the recovery and reuse of such colorants can only be properly achieved when their purity and stability are guaranteed
Consortium: CuRe Technology, Holland Colours, and Universiteit Utrecht.
- Catalytic extrusion for recycling of plastic waste - dr. I. Vollmer:
In order to boost recycling rates, technologies that yield a higher quality product are needed. Chemical transformations to valuable chemicals are promising. For polyolefin plastics, however, breaking the strong chemical bonds requires high temperatures, which leads to uncontrolled chemical transformations and thus a low-value product. With a consortium of extrusion, polymer, process evaluation, pyrolysis and catalysis experts, we aim at lowering the temperature required for the process. We will exploit the forces in an extruder as an additional driver for the chemical conversion, which will help obtain chemicals, such as the ones used to make plastics again, in higher purity.
Consortium: Carboliq, Coperion, Ruhr University, Universiteit Maastricht, and Universiteit Utrecht.
This article was first published on 8 July by Utrecht University.
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