WEBINAR ON

PLASTIC WASTE VALORIZATION FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY: ADVANCED RECYCLING 101

March 10, 2022

06:30 PM (IST)

Prof. Wan-Ting (Grace) Chen

Assistant Professor
Department of Plastics Engineering,
University of Massachusetts Lowell

Introduction

Plastics are persistent in the environment and degrade slowly, over a century, releasing fragments, microplastics, and toxic chemicals into our lands, rivers, and oceans. More than eight billion tons of plastic waste has accumulated worldwide over the past 50 years. The majority (80%) of the waste goes directly into landfills and 3% ends up in the oceans. At the current rate, we will end up having more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050. Single-use packaging, textile, and composite plastic such as e-waste are attributed to more than 50% of the plastic waste. Long term sustainable solutions should therefore be aimed at developing affordable and competitive plastic recycling technologies for the society, to encourage the use of environment-friendly products, and to educate the young generations about the sustainable technology. This talk will discuss :

1) The bottleneck of conventional plastic recycling

2) The state-of-the-art of the emerging advanced recycling methods (e.g., Pyrolysis, Chemolysis, Hydrothermal processes, and selective solvent extraction/dissolution)

3) Case studies about using advanced recycling to reuse end-of-life waste. Ultimately, the Chen Group aims to develop affordable and competitive plastic recycling technologies for the society, to encourage the use of environment-friendly products, and to educate the young generations about the sustainable technology.

PLASTIC WASTE VALORIZATION FOR A CIRCULAR ECONOMY: ADVANCED RECYCLING 101

Speaker

Prof. Wan-Ting (Grace) Chen

Assistant Professor
Department of Plastics Engineering,
University of Massachusetts Lowell

Wan-Ting (Grace) Chen is an assistant professor in the department of Plastics Engineering at the University of Massachusetts Lowell (UMass Lowell), where she directs the Plastics & Environment Research Laboratory (PERL). Grace received her B.Sc in Chemical Engineering from National Taiwan University, M.S. and Ph.D. in Agricultural and Biological Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, a postdoctoral training in Chemical Engineering from Purdue University. Her research group has extensive experience in the sustainability area, working with stakeholders including federal/state agencies, industries, and non-profit organizations. To date, her research group has been funded by the REMADE Institute, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), the U.S. Army Natick Soldier RD&E Center, the United Soybean Board (USB), and several companies.

Prof. Chen’s current research focuses on four topics: 1) Advanced recycling of plastic and municipal waste into fuels, polymers, and chemicals, 2) Degradable and biobased polymeric material development, 3) Interfacial phenomena between microplastics and biofilms, and 4) green solvent/chemical design.

WHAT WILL YOU LEARN?

  • Overview of the challenges of conventional plastic recycling
  • State-of-the-art of the emerging advanced recycling methods including pyrolysis, chemolysis, hydrothermal processes and selective solvent extraction/dissolution
  • Case studies of using advanced recycling to reuse the end-of-life waste.