Chemical plastics recycling is ready to go

“It’s every chemical engineer’s dream to have a formula like this at hand for their process”

30-Aug-2024 - Scientists around the world can now go full throttle in their research into chemical plastics recycling. Researchers at ETH Zurich have laid important foundations for this by showing that it’s all about the stirring. Hundreds of millions of tonnes of plastic waste are generated worldwide every ...

Fungus breaks down ocean plastic

“What makes this research scientifically outstanding, is that we can quantify the degradation process”

17-Jun-2024 - A fungus living in the sea can break down the plastic polyethylene, provided it has first been exposed to UV radiation from sunlight. Researchers from, among others, NIOZ published their results in the scientific journal Science of the Total Environment. They expect that many more plastic ...

Revamped plastics recycling chain

Today’s waste, tomorrow’s valuable resource

06-Mar-2024 - These days, the majority of consumable and everyday items are made from petroleum-based plastic. In Germany alone, some six million tons of plastic waste are generated every year. Approximately half of this is mechanically recycled into new materials; the rest is used for energy recovery. ...

"Project of the century" to enable a multidimensional circularity in the chemical industry

Werner Siemens Foundation supports project at RWTH Aachen University with 100 million Swiss francs

11-Jan-2024 - The Werner Siemens Foundation (WSS) is pleased to announce the winner of its “project of the century” ideas competition: a team led by Regina Palkovits and Jürgen Klankermayer from RWTH Aachen University have been awarded a ten-year WSS grant of one hundred million Swiss francs to set up a WSS ...

Artificial rocks from macroplastics threaten ocean health

German-Indonesian research team identifies new rock-like compounds from plastic waste and coral rubble for the first time

26-Jul-2023 - Plastic waste is a problem on our beaches. Hence, it is largely removed in a coordinated manner within a few weeks. However, it can litter other coasts of the world for many months to years due to unregulated waste disposal. Often the garbage on the beach is simply burned and a special form of ...

Microplastic pollution: some lakes are worse impacted than oceans

Researchers surprised by extent of pollution

14-Jul-2023 - Microplastics are found in lakes and reservoirs around the world. Pollution reaches even the most secluded places where human influence is minimal. Moreover, concentrations of microplastics in freshwaters are sometimes higher than in subtropical gyres, the marine areas where large amounts of ...

Young Inventors Prize 2023 for drawing microplastics out of the ocean

The latest prototype uses a unique mixture without requiring filters or chemicals and removes over 85% of microplastics in a single pass

06-Jul-2023 - The European Patent Office (EPO) announced that Irish environmentalist Fionn Ferreira has won third place in the Young Inventors Prize at the European Inventor Award 2023. Ferreira, a 22-year-old chemistry master's degree student and teaching assistant at the University of Groningen in the ...

AI systems for the airborne detection of plastic waste in the oceans

06-Jun-2023 - Aircraft that routinely fly over bodies of water around the world to monitor pollution could in future not only detect oil and chemical spills on the high seas, in coastal waters and on beaches, but also plastic waste floating on the surface of the water. In the PlasticObs+ project, a consortium ...

Degradation of Plastic Waste using newly Developed Biocatalysts

Breakthrough in polyurethane and polyvinyl alcohol recycling

13-Feb-2023 - The plastic materials polyurethane and polyvinyl alcohol can now be degraded under mild conditions with the help of enzymes as biocatalysts. Scientists from the University of Greifswald have developed corresponding methods together with the German company Covestro and teams from Leipzig and ...

Upcycled plastic membrane helps clean up waste

Plant-derived biosolvents enable the sustainable conversion of plastic waste into valuable membrane materials

10-Feb-2023 - Plastic waste can be used as a raw material for making high performance porous membranes. These could then be used in the chemical industry for the energy-efficient separation of complex chemical mixtures or to clean up waste streams, furtheradding to the environmental appeal of the ...