Page 66 - Plastics News August 2024
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INTERNATIONAL NEWS
Singapore university finds bioresearch applica-
tion for recycled plastic
otivated by a global plastic recycling rect publication earlier this year.
rate of around 10 percent, researchers
Mat Nanyang Technological University “Our innovation not only offers a practical
(NTU) in Singapore have been developing ways means to reuse e-waste plastics but could also
to convert discarded plastic into scaffolding for reduce the use of new plastics in the biomedical
tumors cultivated for laboratory testing purpos- industry,” says Associate Professor Dalton Tay
es. of NTU’s School of Materials Science and Engi-
neering, who led the research.
The project is one of three at NTU that have
been designed to divert plastic scrap streams, Another NTU project involved converting marine
including obsolete electronics and marine sector plastic litter into hydrogen and carbon additives
discards using new methods. for polymer foams.
The laboratory tumors scaffolding application The researchers used high temperatures and
involves acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) the absence of oxygen to break down the mol-
commonly used in computer equipment. The ecules into solid carbon and hydrogen. The solid
NTU researchers say they have developed a carbon can be added to polymer foam to in-
synthetic matrix for culture cells using ABS from crease its strength and resistance to abrasion
discarded keyboards. for cushioning applications, according to NTU,
and the hydrogen produced can be collected
“The matrix is porous like a sponge and func- and used as fuel.
tions as a support structure, providing a frame-
work for cells to attach and grow,” the university “We have developed a feasible approach to
says. repurpose hard-to-recycle plastics, which is an
important aspect of the circular economy,” says
The matrix can host spherical clusters of cells, lead investigator Associate Professor Grzegorz
called cancer spheroids, that resemble actual Lisak of NTU’s School of Civil and Environmental
tumors more accurately than many existing cell Engineering.
cultures.
A summary of the project has been published in
“The matrix supported the growth of breast, the Journal of Hazardous Materials, which also is
colorectal and bone cancer spheroids [that] had a ScienceDirect publication.
properties similar to those grown using com-
mercially available matrices and may be used for In the third NTU project, researchers say they
biomedical applications such as drug testing,” developed a process to convert a wide range of
NTU says. plastics, including polypropylene (PP), polyeth-
ylene (PE) and polystyrene (PS), into chemical
The research findings were reported in the “Re- compounds that can be useful for energy stor-
sources, Conservation & Recycling” ScienceDi- age.
68 PLASTICS NEWS August 2024
