| About this Abstract |
| Meeting |
2025 TMS Annual Meeting & Exhibition
|
| Symposium
|
Revitalization of Materials through Upcycling: The 2025 Student-Led Symposium
|
| Presentation Title |
Upcycling Commodity Polymers |
| Author(s) |
Rabah Boukherroub |
| On-Site Speaker (Planned) |
Rabah Boukherroub |
| Abstract Scope |
Plastics represent the largest synthetic consumer product in the world. The annual production in 2018 reached 359 million metric tons. Plastics are found in countless products. However, despite these beneficial features, the end-of-life management of plastic waste is challenging. The mismanagement of plastic products leads to environmental pollution because the plastic’ lifetime is several times shorter than its decomposition. According to [UNEP 2021], less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled, making the related environmental issues very challenging. Therefore, the development of appropriate strategies to reduce, reuse and recycle plastic is of outermost importance. In this presentation, I will focus on the different recycling strategies of waste polymers and particularly on chemical upcycling, which is achieved by either chemically altering a polymer to one that possesses a higher value or by transforming them to entirely new products. The upcycling of polymers is a relatively young but fast-growing field. |
| Proceedings Inclusion? |
Planned: |
| Keywords |
Polymers, Surface Modification and Coatings, Recycling and Secondary Recovery |