Page 52 - Plastics News July 2023

PET Recycling Goes Electric

esearchers develop an electro- undergoes a color change as the PET use to make something new. Using
Rchemical process that starts to begins to disintegrate. only tabletop equipment in their lab,
break down waste PET into its mo- The research is described in the jour- the researchers said that they could
lecular building blocks within minutes. nal Chem Catalysis. break down about 40 milligrams of
Everything, it seems, is going electric, Study lead author Phuc Pham ex- PET over several hours, writes Strain.
from planes, trains, and automobiles plained to Daniel Strain, who wrote “Although this is a great start, we be-
to our kitchen stoves. You may be about the research on the CU Boul- lieve that lots of work needs to be
able to add recycling to that list at der website, that he and his col- done to optimize the process as well
some point in the future. Chemists leagues ground up plastic PET bottles as scale it up so it can eventually be
at the University of Colorado (CU) and mixed the powder into a solution. applied on an industrial scale,” Pham
Boulder have developed a new way Next, they added a molecule known said.
to recycle polyethylene terephthalate as [N-DMBI] + salt to the solution. In Study co-author Oana Luca is already
(PET) by combining chemical reac- the presence of electricity, this mole- imagining where this technology
tions with an electrical charge. In lab cule forms a “reactive mediator,” said could lead. “If I were to have my way
experiments, the advanced recycling Pham that can donate its extra elec- as a mad scientist, I would use these
technology started breaking apart tron to the PET, causing the grains of electrochemical methods to break
PET within minutes. plastic to come undone. down many different kinds of plastic
In small-scale lab experiments, the The researchers are still trying to at once,” Luca told Strain. “That way,
researchers mixed bits of PET with a understand exactly how these reac- you could, for example, go to these
special kind of molecule then applied tions take place, but they were able massive garbage patches in the ocean,
a small electric voltage. Within min- to break down the PET into its ba- pull all of that waste into a reactor and
utes, as shown in the video, the solu- sic building blocks, which the group get a lot of useful molecules back.”
tion containing the small grains of PET could then recover and, potentially,

TotalEnergies wood pellet packaging made from 50% recycled materials

high performance Lumicene and Su- our businesses. It contributes to ad-
pertough metallocene virgin resins. dressing the challenge of end-of-life
plastics and marks yet a new mile-
The company claims that it exhibits
identical properties and thickness as stone in our ambition of producing
fossil-based alternatives with a signif- 30% circular polymers by 2030,” said
icantly reduced environmental foot- Olivier Greiner, Vice President, Poly-
print. Moreover, the printed area of mers Europe & Orient at TotalEner-
the packaging has been reduced by gies.
he TotalEnergies Premium Wood 60% to improve recyclability and “Our customers choose TotalEnergies
TPellets are now packed in high- limit ink usage. Pellets Premium as heating energy
performance polyethylene bags in- because it is both acost-effective and
corporating 50% post-consumer re- This development is the result of an sustainable solution. The new pack-
cycled (PCR) materials. internal effort within TotalEnergies aging co-developed with the Poly-
to implement the circular economy
The new packaging is composed of a in the company’s own use of plastics. mersDivision facilitates recycling and
core layer of rPE2206, a low-density “This project is a great illustration of helps reduce the carbon footprint of
polyethylene (LDPE) grade made of our commitment to promote sustain- our activity,” saidFrançois Boussagol,
100% PCR content and part of the ability as a Company, by implementing General Sales Manager, Marketing &
RE:clic circular polymer range, and our own innovative developments in Services France at TotalEnergies.

52 PLASTICS NEWS July 2023