BIOP · Upcycling plastic wastes: biopolymers for a circular economy
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2021-09-01 → 2023-08-31
- EU contribution
- €160,932
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Upcycling plastic wastes: biopolymers for a circular economy
BIOP addresses one of the most critical environmental issues derived from human activities, plastic wastes. The project focuses mostly on poliolefins recycling into lighter value-added molecules that can be used as building blocks to synthetize new biobased polymeric units, in combination with specific biomass-derived platform chemicals such as 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). The work aims to provide solutions to climate change and the environment by reducing the massive amount of single-use plastic wastes, reducing the production of plastics from fossil fuels (thus reducing carbon dioxide emissions and fossil fuels dependency) and providing new approaches to obtain bio-based plastics. The latter clearly benefits the whole society in the current scenario of climate change and is essential to pave the way towards a circular economy. The overall objectives of the project are: (i) design and development of efficient catalysts for the conversion of hydrocarbons (polyolefins) to alkanes and light alkenes, (ii) design and development of efficient catalysts for the conversion of light alkenes (ideally from the step (i)) to glycols and (iii) one-pot production of glycols and FDCA, the last one obtained via 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF, biomass-derived molecule) oxidation. The project results have led to the following overall conclusions: (i) the development of iridium based organometallic catalysts immobilized over different inorganic supports and its combination with rhenium-based catalysts lead to efficient systems to degrade hydrocarbons to the desired alkanes and light alkenes, being the support key to modulate the product distribution. Investigating the exact role of each support and how to enhance and/or modulate its participation in the catalytic reaction will definitively pave the way to the design of efficient heterogeneous catalysts for plastic upcycling. (ii) the design of gold-based catalysts supported over titanium containing zeolites lead to potential systems for the production of glycols in liquid media and (iii) the application of those systems in the one-pot production of glycols and FDCA comprises a potential and completely new approach to produce biobased plastics
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
BIOP aims to address one of the most critical environmental issues derived from human activities, plastic wastes. Far from having a suitable alternative to palliate their impact and promote their recyclability, the emerged pandemic alarm associated to the fast coronavirus (COVID-19) spreading worsens detrimentally the scenario. Disposable Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) used by healthcare professionals produces vast quantities of plastic waste, being worthwhile to develop biodegradable PPE for the future, which would allow alternative ways to process this waste. In addition, it is reasonably urgent to propose an efficient alternative to handle the giant amount of non-biodegradable plastics already generated (mainly protective suits, boot covers and single-use gloves). The project focuses mostly on single-use polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP) recycling into lighter value-added molecules (upcycling) that can be used as building blocks to synthetize new biobased polymeric units, in combination with specific biomass-derived platform chemicals such as 2,5-furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA). Hence, going through the plastics to bioplastics concept, the project’s guiding light is the joint valorization of plastic and biomass wastes to finally produce BIOPolymers, approach that add value to both wastes thus paving the way towards a circular economy. With this purpose, the project’s specific challenges concerns 1) PE/PP conversion to lower molecular weight alkenes through the development of specific processes and highly selective catalysts, 2) 5-hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF, biomass platform molecule) transformation to FDCA over the new designed and optimized catalysts and 3) joint conversion of alkenes (derived from plastics) and HMF (one-pot oxidation) thus allowing cost savings and technologies coupling.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSIDAD DE SEVILLA · SevillaCoordinatorSpain
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union