LSU Chemical Engineering Researchers’ New Recycling Process Published in Angewandte Chemie
October 4, 2023
BATON ROUGE, LA – In a recently published paper in Angewandte Chemie, LSU Chemical Engineering Associate Professor Kunlun Ding and his research group detail a new concept for recycling plastic waste.
Condensation polymers—including polyesters, polyamides, and polyurethanes—contribute to 30% of global plastic waste production, with more than 10% of that coming from a single type of polymer, polyethylene terephthalate, or PET. More than 80 million tons of PET are produced globally each year for manufacturing single-use water or beverage bottles, food containers, backsheets of solar panels, etc. The only commercial approach to chemically recycle PET is via alcoholysis at high temperatures—either through methanolysis under melting conditions or glycolysis in large amounts of solvent.
Ding’s research group proposes depositing a zinc oxide catalyst layer on the PET surface, enabling the vapor phase depolymerization of PET by methanolysis, producing high purity monomers. The amount of zinc oxide catalysts needed for this process is as low as 100 parts per million to completely break down PET at 160-180 degrees Celsius in two hours—much lower than the ~300 degrees Celsius required in the current commercial methanolysis process. The research group goes on to add that their new approach might be applicable to other types of high-melting point engineering plastics and thermoset plastics, which are generally difficult to process or depolymerize.
Joining Ding as co-authors on the paper are third-year chemical engineering graduate student Xiaoshen Bai, recent chemical engineering graduate Divakar Aireddy, and LSU Professor of Research in the Center for Advanced Microstructures & Devices Amitava Roy.
Click here to read the full paper.
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