Catalytic Oxidative Upcycling of Plastic Waste and Heat Integration using Chemical Looping Systems

Plastics, or polymers, are ubiquitous, resilient and low-cost materials with wide-reaching applications from healthcare to construction. However, as plastics production has increased twenty-fold over the last 50 years and much of the waste ends up in the environment and in ever- growing landfills, leading to a mounting ecological and economic problem. Only a small quantity of waste plastics is recycled to similar quality use. Plastics today are recycled commercially by inefficient and expensive mechanical processing. There is an increased need to develop innovative solutions to address waste disposal and the upcycling of plastics for value-added applications. This Phase I project will develop a process to convert mixed waste plastics to fundamental polymer building blocks and fuel additives or liquid fuels. EcoCatalytic has discovered a new class of materials that can covert mixed plastics at commercially viable yields. This project will further design and optimize these novel materials. Similar developing technologies require significant energy and require high purity feedstocks. EcoCatalytic’s selective oxidation process generates heat used to drive the plastic cracking process and produces multiple high value products. In addition, this technology can be deployed on modular-scale due to the reduced processing steps, which allows for feedstock and product flexibility depending on location.