EFRI E3P: Sustainable and Circular Engineering for the Elimination of End-of-life Plastics: A Framework for Assessment, Design, and Innovation

设计消除报废塑料（E3 P）需要技术进步，以最大限度地回收利用和回收，行为理解，以影响消费者的态度，以及经济的方法来激励延长产品寿命。每一种替代方案都涉及其社会可接受性、经济可行性、环境可持续性和循环性的权衡。例如，如果可生物降解的塑料分解成为生物营养素，它们似乎是最理想的。然而，如果这些材料具有较大的生命周期环境影响，则它们的采用不会消除寿命终止，而只是将环境负担沿着生命周期转移。E3 P的解决方案必须是可持续的，即环境友好、经济可行和社会可取。该项目的总体目标是为可持续和循环E3 P（SCE 3 P）的评估，设计和创新开发整体和系统的方法和工具。该研究小组将在聚合物化学，反应工程和分子模拟方面进行协同研究，以确定在实际污染条件下解聚和稳定过程的特性;工艺设计，以模拟当前和新兴技术的成本和物理流量;供应网络建模，以确定对更广泛的化学工业的影响;行为研究，以识别和影响消费者的作用;以及生命周期和循环评估，以估计全球价值链的环境影响。由此产生的框架将考虑整个塑料生命周期，包括每一步的数千种替代品组合，以选择“最佳”途径。该框架将能够评估现有产品，设计新产品和途径，并鼓励SCE 3 P的创新。该框架将适用于所有类型的塑料，但该项目的实验重点将是聚苯乙烯（PS）和聚对苯二甲酸乙二醇酯（PET），因为它们的市场很大。SCE 3 P框架将在该项目中应用于食品服务行业的塑料产品，并与行业联盟和其他利益相关者合作进行案例研究。该项目旨在促进化学工程，可持续工程和行为科学的融合，以评估，设计和创新，实现塑料的可持续和循环经济。一个目标是开发有关PS和PET产品的各种解聚和增值方法的化学和工程的新知识。研究团队还将汇集有关塑料生命周期步骤的知识，为SCE 3 P的创新路线图做出贡献。美国化学工业的空间模型将被扩展，包括塑料工业和SCE 3 P的新兴技术。行为研究将提高对塑料产品选择及其负责任处置的其他决定的溢出效应的理解。将开发新的数据和方法来评估和设计循环系统，评估其弹性，并确定重点创新的热点。应用于食品服务将引导实现零浪费和碳中和目标的进展。该项目的成果将是科学、环境与发展3 P框架的软件原型，将通过大学网站、面向行业和其他利益攸关方的网络研讨会以及大学课程广泛传播。合作者将提供访问世界各地的100多家公司。该团队将开发与研究相关的教学模块，通过“工程师你的世界”计划纳入大学课程和高中工程课程，该计划覆盖美国各地10，000多名不同的高中学生。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

Engineering the Elimination of End-of-life Plastics (E3P) requires technological advances to maximize recycling and recovery, behavioral understanding to influence consumer attitudes, and economic approaches to incentivize extension of product life. Each alternative involves trade-offs in its social acceptability, economic feasibility, environmental sustainability, and circularity. For example, biodegradable plastics may seem to be most desirable if they decompose to become biological nutrients. However, if these materials have a large life cycle environmental impact, their adoption will not eliminate the end-of-life, but simply shift the environmental burden along the life cycle. Solutions for E3P need to be sustainable by being environmentally benign, economically feasible, and socially desirable. The overall goal of this project is to develop holistic and systematic methods and tools for assessment, design, and innovation toward Sustainable and Circular E3P (SCE3P). The research team will conduct synergistic research in polymer chemistry, reaction engineering, and molecular simulation to determine properties of depolymerization and valorization processes under practical conditions of contamination; process design to model the cost and physical flows of current and emerging technologies; supply network modeling to determine the effects on the wider chemical industry; behavioral studies to discern and influence the role of consumers; and life cycle and circularity assessment to estimate environmental effects across global value chains. The resulting framework will consider the entire plastics life cycle, including thousands of combinations of alternatives at each step to select the "best" pathway. This framework will be able to assess existing products, design new products and pathways, and encourage innovation toward SCE3P. The framework will be useful for all types of plastics, but the project's experimental focus will be on polystyrene (PS) and poly(ethylene terepthalate) (PET) due to their large market. The SCE3P framework will be applied in the project to plastic products in the food service industry, with case studies done in collaboration with industry consortia and other stakeholders. The project is formulated to contribute to the convergence of chemical engineering, sustainable engineering, and behavioral science, for assessment, design, and innovation toward a sustainable and circular economy of plastics. A target is to develop new knowledge about the chemistry and engineering of various depolymerization and valorization approaches for PS and PET products. The research team will also bring together knowledge about steps in the plastics life cycle to contribute to an innovation roadmap for SCE3P. A spatial model of the U.S. chemical industry will be extended by including the plastics industry and emerging technologies for SCE3P. Behavioral studies will improve the understanding of spillover effects of other decisions on choice of plastic products and their responsible disposal. New data and methods will be developed for assessing and designing circular systems, evaluating their resilience, and identifying hotspots to focus innovation. Application to food services will guide progress toward goals of zero waste and carbon neutrality. The outcome of this project is to be a software prototype of the SCE3P framework, which will be disseminated widely via a university-based website, webinars to industry and other stakeholders, and university courses. Collaborators will provide access to over a hundred companies across the world. The team will develop teaching modules related to the research for inclusion in university courses and high school engineering curricula through the Engineer Your World program which reaches over 10,000 diverse high school students across the U.S.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.