Doctoral Themes - Proposals

Development of new cost-efficient methodologies for the valorization of plastic waste into value-added compounds

Supervisors

Ana Cristina Fernandes, anacristinafernandes@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

Carla Duarte Nunes, cmnunes@fc.ul.pt

Registration Institution

Instituto Superior Técnico (Universidade de Lisboa)

Project description

Plastic plays an important role in improving our lifestyles in numerous sectors such as packaging, construction, automotive manufacture, household appliances, electronic goods, agriculture and medicine, and living without plastics is almost impossible. As consequent plastic pollution is a social, economic, environmental and global problem. Beyond change/awareness of consumer behavior, there is an urgent need to develop efficient chemical methodologies for recycling plastic waste.

Plastic waste is among the most valuable waste materials and can be regarded as a potentially cheap source for the production of value-added products or raw materials for the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

This project aims to develop new cost-efficient methods for the reductive depolymerization of several plastic waste including polyesters, polycarbonates and polyamides into value-added compounds. A variety of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysts containing cheap or earth abundant metal will be explored.

The execution of this project will lead to the conversion of plastic waste into a wide variety of value-added compounds including alcohols, amines and aromatic products, which can be reuse in the synthesis of new polymers or as valuable starting materials in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries.

Another important goal of this project will be the depolymerization of real plastic waste obtained from domestic waste or generated from different industries including textile, hospital, electronics or automobile.

This project will certainly contribute to the valorization of plastic waste, reducing the large amount of these wastes that is released into the environment and into the oceans and also to improve the circular economy and human health.

Keywords

Plastic waste, polyesters, polycarbonates, polyamides, value-added compounds.

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