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HEIndividual fellowship2022–2025

PolyRec · Developing sustainable, high performance polyurethanes with chemical circularity

Horizon Europe — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Duration
2022-07-01 → 2025-06-30
EU contribution
€261,381
Participants
2
Scheme
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-GF

Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.

Results in brief

Developing sustainable, high performance polyurethanes with chemical circularity

Summary: Plastic production is increasing globally reaching 390,7 Mt in 2021. Most of the plastics are used in low value applications were after a short period of time are disposed, contributing to the problem of plastic waste. Chemical recycling to monomer is one of the most promising technologies for the end of life of discarded plastic products. This approach enables to obtain the original monomer that can be infinitely recycled obtaining new polymer with the same physical properties. The European funded PolyRec project will design polyurethanes that can be chemically recycled and that show good physical properties. Objective: Since the development of the first fully synthetic plastics at the beginning of the 20th century, these materials have become ubiquitous in our daily life. Today’s plastics are designed for performance, cost, durability, and disposability without taking into consideration their recyclability. Thus, the plastic waste problem is one of the most challenging objectives of the European Union. Among different polymer families polyurethanes are one of the most versatile. By selecting the appropriate monomers materials with a wide range of physical properties can be obtained. The main advantages of polyurethanes are the durability, toughness and excellent chemical resistance. Thus, polyurethanes are used in a wide range of applications such as building and construction. transport, furniture and bedding, coatings etc. Conventional polyurethanes are prepared by step-growth polymerization employing diisocyanates and diols or polyols. However, once they reach their end of life they are difficult to recycle. Thus, in this project PolyRec, chemically recyclable polyurethanes will be designed that show a good physical performance and thus, can compete with conventional polyurethanes that are used nowadays in the market.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union

Project objective

Since the development of the first fully synthetic plastics in the early 20th century, these materials have become ubiquitous in our daily life. The production of plastics has increased considerably, reaching 368 million tons in 2019 and it is expected to double again by 2035. Today’s plastics are designed for performance, cost and durability without taking into consideration their life after use. This has resulted in an annual generation of plastic solid waste of 150 million tonnes. Tackling plastic waste problem is one of the top priorities yet most challenging objectives of the European Union, which has set ambitious policies (i.e. Green Deal) and aims to recycle 50 % of all post-consumer plastics by 2025.The design of plastics with recyclability built into their performance aiming for a circular plastics economy is gaining a lot of attention. With specifically designed monomers, reaction conditions can be used to select the direction of the monomer-polymer equilibrium. Therefore, chemical recycling to monomer presents an attractive alternative since the polymer waste is employed to close the loop in a circular economy process that recovers the economic value of the material.Through PolyRec, Dr. Ainara Sangroniz proposes to tackle this growing global challenge, by developing high-performance polyurethane (PU) plastics that exhibit a closed-loop circular lifecycle while also having performance properties comparable to those of today’s poorly or non-recyclable commodity plastics. In the outgoing phase, the fellow will develop an innovative class of intrinsically recyclable PUs at the Colorado State University under the supervision of Porf. Eugene Y. X. Chen. In the incoming phase, these will then be depolymerized into their building block monomers and repolymerized back into the PU’s at POLYMAT (University of the Basque Country), supervised by Prof. Haritz Sardon.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

  • UNIVERSIDAD DEL PAIS VASCO/ EUSKAL HERRIKO UNIBERTSITATEA · LeioaCoordinatorSpain
  • BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY SYSTEM · Fort CollinsUnited States

Links

Data: CORDIS, © European Union