Doctoral Themes - Proposals

Chemical recycling of waste plastics by catalytic conversion: A route for circularity

Supervisors

Maria do Rosário Ribeiro, rosario@tecnico.ulisboa.pt

João Miguel Alves da Silva, jmsilva@deq.isel.ipl.pt

Registration Institution

Instituto Superior Técnico (Universidade de Lisboa)

Project description

Plastic waste continues to be one of the key areas in the 2020 Circular Economy Action Plan. The EU policy is currently focused on chemical recycling as a pathway to promote a circular economy for plastics.

The catalytic cracking reaction under hydrogen atmosphere, also known as hydrocracking, (HDC) is a very promising route for managing plastic feedstocks. The selection of a suitable catalyst is extremely important for the efficiency of this process, allowing the reduction of the energy requirements and providing selectivity towards the desired products.

This PhD project is focused on the use of HDC technology to convert waste plastics into a feedstock fitting the specifications of a stream to be directly introduced into a steam cracker industrial unit for the production of olefin monomers. Different types of zeolite-based catalysts combined with transition metals will be studied to achieve the proposed targets.

Keywords

Circular economy; Waste plastics; Chemical recycling; Hydrocracking; Zeolites

Societal Challenges

The proposal aligns with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations Agenda 2030: Combat environmental degradation, and with Horizon 20-30 of EU HORIZON-CL4-2021-TWIN-TRANSITION-01-17: Plastic waste as a circular carbon feedstock for industry (IA).

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