Plastic pollution of the worlds oceans and land is a tremendous problem. One of the
reasons for the release of plastics to the environment is that plastics are virtually
impossible to recycle, especially if they are dirty and mixed. Plastics are made from
fossil crude oil after refining the oil to specific monomers which are used to
synthesize the plastic polymers. Chemical recycling of waste plastics is a new way
of tackling plastic waste, where the idea is to break down the plastic polymers
down to their original monomers. If this is successful no new monomers from fossil
crude have to be refined and the oil can stay underground. The problem is that the
chemical recycling method is not that easy as plastics are by nature quite resistant
to chemicals which also leads to their persistence in the environment. Hence in the
current project we will employ a technology called hydrothermal liquefaction that
uses high pressure and temperature to break down polymers. A specific type of
polymer known as polyolefins are difficult to break down with just temperatures,
hence we will design new catalysts which can achieve that. Ultimately, we aim to
develop a process that can convert unsorted and dirty plastics even mixed with
other wastes to an oil which will replace the chemicals from fossil crude.
