I-Corps: Functional carbon additives derived from upcycled plastic waste

I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种实用的和可推广的技术，用于从聚烯烃及其废料中制造碳产品。虽然聚烯烃是生产和使用最广泛的聚合物类别，但它们也构成了大多数塑料废物，对环境和社会的可持续发展构成严重风险。目前与聚烯烃相关的废物管理策略包括填埋、焚烧和转化为价值较低的产品。该项目将专注于将一种简单、可扩展的工艺商业化，为塑料升级回收提供有效的解决方案。相关技术可以通过将聚烯烃废物转化为功能性碳产品来显着提高其价值。这些碳可以用作常规塑料制造的添加剂，作为性能改性剂和增强剂。此外，修复塑料污染代表着强烈的社会需求，相应的回收行业的爆炸式增长就是一个例证。同时，该项目为刺激周边地区的塑料回收和升级基础设施，促进当地相应产业的经济发展提供了巨大的机会。I-Corps项目的基础是开发一个平台，将聚烯烃衍生的塑料废物升级为功能性、增值的碳材料。该项目的核心技术是将酸增强交联化学与优化反应条件相结合，使聚烯烃材料热稳定，使其在氮气气氛下高温热解后成为产率至少为65%的高效碳前驱体。该工艺具有成本效益，并且有可能规模化生产具有高石墨化程度、高孔隙度和杂原子掺杂框架的碳。此外，这一过程的简单性允许通过仔细的系统设计有效地向工业相关规模转变。基于对加工条件和所得材料性能之间基本关系的理解，该技术还可以通过操纵加工条件轻松控制导热性和导电性，吸附性能和所得碳添加剂的机械性能。这项技术的成功商业化和及时推广将为解决至少数百万吨塑料垃圾提供经济可行的解决方案，从而直接解决最紧迫的环境和社会挑战之一。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of a practical and generalizable technology for manufacturing carbon products from polyolefins and their waste. While polyolefins represent the most widely produced and used category of polymers, they also contribute to the majority of plastic waste that imposes serious risks to the sustainable development of the environment and society. Current waste management strategies associated with polyolefins include landfilling, incineration, and conversion to products with less value. This project will focus on commercializing a simple, scalable process to provide an efficient solution for plastic upcycling. The associated technology may significantly increase the value of polyolefin waste through converting them to functional carbon products. These carbons may be used as additives for conventional plastic manufacturing as property modifiers and enhancers. In addition, remediating plastic pollution represents a strong societal demand, exemplified by explosive growth in the corresponding recycling industry. Also, this project provides great opportunities to stimulate plastic recycling and upcycling infrastructure in the surrounding regions, promoting local economic development of the corresponding industries.This I-Corps project is based on the development of a platform for upcycling polyolefin-derived plastic waste into functional, value-added carbon materials. The core technology in this project combines an acid-enhanced crosslinking chemistry with optimized reaction conditions to thermally stabilize polyolefin materials, enabling them to become efficient carbon precursors with at least 65% yield after high temperature pyrolysis under nitrogen atmosphere. This process is cost-effective and potentially may be scaled to produce carbons with high degree of graphitization, high porosity, and heteroatom-doped framework. Moreover, the simplicity of this process allows for efficient transformation towards industrially relevant scales through careful system design. Building upon the understanding of the fundamental relationship between processing conditions and resulting material properties, this technology also enables easy control over thermal and electrical conductivity, adsorption performance, and mechanical properties of resulting carbon additives by manipulating processing conditions. Successful commercialization and timely distribution of this technology would lead to an economically feasible solution to address at least millions of tons of plastic waste, which directly tackles one of the most pressing environmental and societal challenges.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.