Page 32 - Plastics News September 2023

involved the pretreatment of plastics nation and exploitation of results, as tive processes. The first consisted of
using microwave-assisted thermo- well as communication activities. chemical disintegration processes, in-
chemical degradation. This new tech- BioICEP met the goal of develop- cluding a new microwave-based tech-
nology provided promising results ing processes to reduce the amount nology that reduces the molecular
by turning non-biodegradable plas- of plastic waste in the environment. weight of base polymers to improve
tic waste (such as low-density poly- With this in mind, the project was biodegradation. The second process
ethylene) into easily biodegradable made up of partners from different was biocatalytic digestion with im-
materials. AIMPLAS claims that they countries and areas of knowledge proved enzymes using different inno-
achieved total degradation in less who were able to address the chal- vative techniques, including screening
than 28 days. Another technique used lenge of developing alternative pro- with fluorescent sensors and directed
was the depolymerization of polyam- cesses to improve recycling based on evolution. Finally, in the third process,
ides to obtain the monomers of these a multidisciplinary approach, which microbial consortia developed from
polymers. Microorganisms are then was essential for project success. ‘best-in-class’ single microbial strains
able to degrade these monomers so The solution proposed by the BioI- were used in combination to pro-
they can be turned into products of CEP project focused on the use of duce the highly efficient degradation
interest such as bioplastics. three technologies that enhance, ac- of mixed plastic waste streams. The
Likewise, AIMPLAS says it used reac- celerate and increase the degradation products of this degradation process
tive extrusion technologies that made of plastics to ‘levels far beyond what will be used for the synthesis of new
changes to the structure of the poly- is currently possible.’ A triple-action polymers and bioproducts to enable
meric chains to improve biodegrada- depolymerization system broke down a new plastic waste-based circular
tion of these plastics. AIMPLAS is also plastic waste through three consecu- economy.
the coordinator in charge of dissemi-

32 PLASTICS NEWSASTICS NEWS September 2023
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