Institute for Cooperative Upcycling of Plastics Research Highlights

Coarse-Grained Modeling of Polymer Cleavage Within a Porous Catalytic Support

Results of this research offer a mechanistic explanation for an experimentally observed product distribution trend related to a tunable physical parameter of a catalytic architecture for plastics’ upcycling.

Adsorption and Mobility of Polymers in Long Nanopores: From Non-eq Stat Mech to 2D-NMR

This research enables quantitative estimates of polymer reptation diffusivity and polymer-wall interactions in silicananopores.

Recyclable Polyethylene-Like Polymer From Plastic Jug

This work highlights the transformation of plastic waste using catalytic transformations to obtain a new HDPE-like polymer that maintains similar thermal and mechanical properties to the original material.

Molecular Weight Evolution in Polymer Upcycling: Extracting Rates and Identifying Mechanistic Signatures

This research resulted in development of a framework to formulate and solve coupled bulk population balances, bulk species balances, and surface-adsorbed population balances.

Processive Depolymerization Catalysts: A Population Balance Model for Chemistry’s “While” Loop

This ACS Catalysis paper develops and solves a population balance model for processive depolymerization catalyst.

The Effect of Polymer Structure on Catalytic Hydrogenolysis

The effect of polymer structure on catalytic hydrogenolysis

Introduce Unsaturation Into Polymer Backbones to Achieve Chemical Recycling of Polyolefins

Introduce unsaturation into polymer backbones to achieve chemical recycling of polyolefins

chemically recyclable ester-linked polypropylene

Size-Controlled Nanoparticles Embedded in a Mesoporous Architecture Leading to Efficient and Selective Hydrogenolysis of Polyolefins

Architecture-governed selectivity in the deconstruction of polyethylene provides a design strategy to target narrow molecular weight distributions of desired products for application in plastic upcycling

Scalable Synthesis of Pt/SrTiO3 Hydrogenolysis Catalysts in Pursuit of Manufacturing-Relevant Waste Plastic Solutions

Chemical Upcycling of Polyethylene to Divinyl Oligomers

Polyethylenes were upgraded to value-added a,w-divinyl-functionalized oligomers with tunable chain lengths via a three step process.