Upcycling Ocean-based Plastics for Sustainable Feedstock Supply Chain

Plastics are ubiquitous in modern life. Global production of plastics has reached over 450 million tons annually. Total plastics production has increased by 36% in the past decade and is estimated to grow to 700 million tons in 2030. Over 10% of used plastics ends up in the ocean. Slow photo-degradation of plastics forms micro-pieces, creating waterborne pollutants and toxins, and causing health risks to ocean life and humans through the food chain. The challenges of plastics and increasing sustainable feedstock demand can be simultaneously addressed by proper characterization of ocean plastics and their upcycling into green chemicals and polymers. Currently a small fraction of plastics is recycled through mechanical processing. The mechanical recycling technology causes significant loss in the properties of plastics and the recycled materials are used for low value applications, which is often referred to as Ĺcarbon downcyclingĺ. RiKarbon is commercializing an enabling technology, RiPURPOSE? (RiKarbonĺs Prudent Upcycling of Refuse Plastics for Ocean Sustainability and Environment), entailing development of post-consumer including ocean-borne plastic feedstock, especially polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a major fraction of ocean mixed plastics, and their hydrolytic depolymerization into PETĺs building block products for manufacturing renewable and upcycled PET and adhesives. It will (1) mitigate environmental challenges of waste plastics, (2) Ĺupcycleĺ their carbon value, (3) create a sustainable supply chain for waste plastics, (4) reduce our dependence on petroleum, (5) improve future energy security, (6) reduce global CO2 footprint by introducing recycled feedstock, and (7) create a circular economy. To date, we have studied the effect of PET particle sizes on selective depolymerization, characterized ocean mixed plastics contaminates and composition, studied the effects of ocean contaminates on the depolymerization, assessed feedstock augmentation by using low-cost color and mixed PET, optimized the reaction conditions for both depolymerization and repolymerization to produce upcycled PET and adhesives, scaled up the process to produce products in quantity for detailed characterization and evaluation by our customers and cost/life cycle assessment (LCA). LCA assessment showed 56% lower global warming potential (GWP) from our process with reference to the incumbent technologies. In this project, we will demonstrate the RiPURPOSE? process at pilot scale and leverage the process derived RiPurpose?Olig productĺs structural value proposition to produce high value biodegradable adhesives for packaging applications. Key technical objectives of this project are: (1) ring-opening copolymerization of RiPurpose?Olig, (2) optimization of copolymer synthesis procedure, (3) characterization of copolymer properties, (4) formulation of copolymers with additives for end-use packaging applications, (5) scale up depolymerization and copolymerization processes at pilot scale, (6) regulatory approval and (7) detailed cost and LCA assessment to account improvement from this project.