Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Organic/Inorganic/Materials Seminar Series

Professor Julie Rorrer, University of Washington
Friday, February 28, 2025
3:00 pm, 110 Willamette Hall
Hosted by Teresa Rapp

Advancing the Catalytic Recycling of Polyolefin Waste

Single-use plastics such as polyolefins provide lightweight and effective packaging and materials for food, medicine, and many other consumer products. This has led to massive global generation of plastic waste which is accumulating in landfills and the environment, causing harm to the ecosystem and human health. While a small amount of plastic waste is mechanically recycled, the material quality is diminished compared to virgin polymers. Chemical recycling with heterogeneous catalysis can lower the energy required to selectively break apart polyolefins into higher value fuels, chemicals, and monomers. Emerging methods which can be performed at relatively low temperatures include hydrogenolysis and hydrocracking, solvent-based deconstruction, and tandem hydrogenolysis/aromatization. The scalability of these methods is limited by the high cost of reactants, the requirement for high pressure molecular hydrogen or solvents, and the high cost of catalytic materials. This talk will start by discussing advances in the catalytic depolymerization of waste plastics via hydrogenolysis and hydrocracking, followed by progress in hydrogen-free depolymerization pathways. The talk will close with a discussion on emerging frameworks for the chemical recycling of mixed plastic waste feedstocks and an outlook on remaining technical challenges in polymer upcycling, redesign, and circularity.