Currently, only fifteen percent of the one million tons of plastics discarded annually in the Netherlands is recycled in a high-quality manner. The goal is to recycle fifty percent of all plastics by 2030 and achieve full circular production by 2050. The question being investigated in "Making Plastics Circular: Technical Innovations" is what technical innovations can ensure that plastics are reused more frequently.
PolyPulse: Selective Polymer Recycling by Intense Light Flashes
The recycling of plastics can be significantly improved by treating the polymer with short heat pulses, which prevents the formation of low-quality byproducts. However, this has only been studied for slow heat pulses, which last much longer than chemical reactions. Scientists, led by chemists Sven Askes and Charusheela Ramanan, will enhance this technology by treating plastics with extremely short infrared light flashes in a dynamic rhythm. This wireless and remotely controllable technique guides decomposition, minimizes unwanted byproducts, and is adaptable for any plastic. PolyPulse focuses on finding pulse rhythms that optimize the product distribution of photo-thermal decomposition and takes the first step toward this new circular recycling process.
The research is a consortium involving the Eindhoven University of Technology and Veridis.
Six million euros have been allocated across ten projects. All research will last five years and will fit within one of the following three themes: design of circular plastics; new characterization, sorting, and cleaning techniques; new recycling techniques. Read about the other nine research projects in the NWO press release.
About the National Growth Fund Program Circular Plastics NL (CPNL)
The call "Making Plastics Circular: Technical Innovations" is part of the National Growth Fund Program Circular Plastics NL. By 2030, the Netherlands aims to recycle fifty percent of all plastics, and by 2050, achieve a fully circular plastics chain. The CPNL program runs for eight years and has eight program lines focused on addressing bottlenecks to close the loops for existing plastics, offering sustainable growth opportunities for the Dutch economy, and accelerating the transition with subsidies.
About the National Growth Fund
Through the National Growth Fund (NGF), the government will invest twenty billion euros from 2021 to 2025 in projects that ensure long-term economic growth. The National Growth Fund invests in research, development, and innovation projects. In several of these projects, NWO is involved as one of the implementing organizations, including organizing grant programs for scientific research or scientific talent.
