Division/Committee: [ENVR] Division of Environmental Chemistry

Plastic waste, which is one of the major sources of pollution in the landfills and oceans, has raised global concern, primarily due to the huge production rate, high durability, and the lack of utilization of the available waste management techniques. Recycling methods are preferable to reduce the impact of plastic pollution to some extent. However, most of the recycling techniques are associated with different drawbacks, high cost and downgrading of product quality being among the notable ones. The sustainable option is to upcycle the plastic waste to create high-value materials to compensate for the cost of production. Several upcycling techniques are constantly being investigated and explored, which is currently the only economical option to resolve the plastic waste issue. This symposium provides a comprehensive insight on the promising chemical and biological routes available for upcycling and valorization of the most widely used plastic and mixed plastic wastes. The development of effective upcycling and valorization processes within a circular economy approach is of utmost importance, ideally producing not only monomers for new plastics, but value-added products or intermediates for other supply chains. Herein, a sustainable concept is introduced in this symposium, enabling efficient plastic upcycling and valorization through combined catalytic and biological processing with biomass-derived chemicals, yielding high-value platform chemicals.

Eman Sallam

National Institute of Oceanography and Fisheries Mediterranean Sea Branch

Appearances