Page 54 - Plastics News Issue September2025

BUSINESS NEWS

Ian Temperton, Chief Executive Officer of Plastic “Recycling plastic waste into new plastics is criti-
Energy, said: cal to building a circular economy — and that’s
exactly what this plant delivers. It boosts recy-
“Producing our first TACOIL at SPEAR is a major cling rates, helps reduce CO2 emissions by di-
TM
step forward for the plastic recycling industry. It verting used plastic from incineration, and shows
underscores the capabilities of Plastic Energy’s what’s possible when innovation meets scale.”
technology, the robustness of our process and
the dedication of our excellent team. We value Source - https://mrai.org.in
the collaboration with our project partner SABIC
and are proud to have achieved this milestone
together.

IT BHILAI SCIENTISTS DEVELOP BREAKTHROUGH ECO-

FRIENDLY METHOD TO RECYCLE PLASTIC WASTE

n a major breakthrough
that could redefine the fight
Iagainst plastic pollution, a
team of researchers from IIT
Bhilai has developed a novel
eco-friendly method to recy-
cle polyethylene terephtha-
late (PET) the most common
plastic used in bottles, textiles,
and packaging. The innovation
promises to transform waste
into valuable raw material
while cutting down on energy
use and environmental harm.
conditions addressing the shortcomings of ex-

The research team, comprising Priyank Sinha, isting recycling techniques.
Sudipta Paul, Swarup Maity, and Dr. Sanjib Ba- Unlike traditional chemical recycling, which is of-
nerjee from the Department of Chemistry, has
introduced a nanotechnology-based process ten energy-intensive and polluting, the IIT Bhilai
approach minimizes hazardous byproducts and
that efficiently depolymerizes PET into its core
monomer, bis(2-hydroxyethyl) terephthalate enables the catalyst to be reused multiple times
without loss of activity. This scalable pathway
(BHET). Using magnetically recyclable nano ze-
ro-valent iron (nZVI) as a catalyst, the method could pave the way for closed-loop plastic recy-
cling, where discarded PET is continuously con-
delivers high yield and selectivity under mild
verted back into high-value materials.

54 PLASTICS NEWS September 2025