Evonik aligns two business lines with new growth strategy

Businesses outside core areas are to be sold or discontinued

16-Oct-2024 - Evonik is reorganizing two business lines to strengthen their growth prospects. Coating & Adhesive Resins and Health Care will focus on and concentrate future investments in their respective core businesses. The remaining businesses outside these cores are to be sold to new owners or incorporated ...

Quantitative molecular characterization of polyolefin recyclates

13-Aug-2024 - Polyolefin waste is largely only recycled thermally. Material downcycling dominates here. From an economic and legislative point of view, more upcycling, i.e. the use in product categories of equal or higher value, is urgently required. However, information on the molecular structure of ...

Scientists find a close-loop recycling process for one of the most widely used plastics

"We have introduced a new chemically recyclable, highly branched polyolefin material"

05-Feb-2024 - A pioneering development enables the targeted replication of the chemical structure of low-density polyethylene (LDPE), a plastic that has been difficult to imitate until now, and shows great potential for sustainable alternatives in the plastics industry. Prof. Dr Rhett Kempe, Chair of Inorganic ...

Trojan Horse Polymers for a Circular Economy

New strategy for recyclable polyolefins

21-Jun-2023 - It is hard to imagine our daily lives without plastics made out of polyolefins. Unfortunately, practical methods for recycling of polyolefins are lacking. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, a research team has now introduced a new approach for making novel polyolefins that can be chemically ...

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 ...

Chemists develop radical way to make it easier, more profitable to recycle plastic

By modifying carbon-hydrogen bonds, chemists transform plastic trash into tougher, stronger material

09-Feb-2022 - The United States generates more plastic trash than any other country – about 46.3 million tons of it -- or 287 pounds per person a year,according to a 2020 study. The country’s 9% rate of recycling will never keep up. Why so low? The chemistry of today’s plastics makes most difficult to ...

X-ray insights may enable better plastics production

Analysis helps to understand fragmentation of catalyst particles in ethylene polymerisation

30-Sep-2021 - An X-ray study at DESY is pointing the way towards a better understanding of plastics production. A team led by Utrecht University investigated so-called Ziegler-type catalysts, the workhorses in the world's polyethylene and polypropylene production, at DESY's X-ray source PETRA III. As the ...

Plastics could see a second life as biodegradable surfactants

A new chemical process provides biodegradable chemicals

30-Apr-2021 - Scientists at the Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics (iCOUP), an Energy Frontier Research Center led by Ames Laboratory, have discovered a chemical process that provides biodegradable, valuable chemicals, which are used as surfactants and detergents in a range of applications, from ...

A mild way to upcycle plastics used in bottles into fuel and other high-value products

29-Jan-2021 - Plastic is ubiquitous in people's lives. Yet, when plastic-containing items have fulfilled their missions, only a small amount is recycled into new products, which are often of lower quality compared to the original material. And, transforming this waste into high-value chemicals requires ...

A first-of-its-kind catalyst mimics natural processes to break down plastics

The new catalyst is able to process polymers widely used in things like plastic grocery bags, milk jugs, shampoo bottles, toys, and food containers

22-Oct-2020 - While plastics recycling is not new science, current processes don't make it economically worthwhile-- waste plastics get "down-cycled" into lower grade, less useful material. It's a challenge that continues to be an obstacle in tackling a growing global pollution crisis in single use plastics. A ...