FMSG ECO: Melt Mastication for Upcycling of Polyolefins

FMSG ECO：用于聚烯烃升级循环的熔融塑炼

• 批准号: 2229091
• 负责人: Margaret SobkowiczKline
• 金额: $ 50万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Lowell
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-01-01 至 2024-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2229091&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: FMSG; ECO; Melt; Mastication; Upcycling

The need for highly functional flexible packaging for food, medical products, and consumer goods is growing worldwide, but single-use plastics are also contributing to environmental pollution. Current materials are not recyclable because of their heterogeneity and related challenges in collection, separation, cleaning, and reprocessing. While chemical recycling methods are rapidly evolving, these approaches require high energy input, and the intrinsic material value is lost. This project will enable increased recycling of flexible films through creation of a manufacturing process for high performance barrier films from a single polymer type. Industrial, economic, and societal benefits respectively include: (1) enhanced functional properties in films for high volume applications, (2) cost competitiveness driven by technologies that are compatible with current processing systems, and (3) greatly enhanced plastics recycling enabled by simplified material systems. The research plan includes industry workshops for advancing the novel plastics processing technologies as well as educational webinars to impact plastics sustainability more broadly.This research will investigate new materials processing strategies designed to replace traditional multilayer packaging systems with polyethylenes of varying molecular weight, branching structures, and crystallinity to achieve properties superior to known best-in-class barrier films. These strategies require improved understanding and control of polymer morphology, specifically: (1) characterization of the melt-mastication dynamics, (2) scale-up with layer multiplying sonication, and (3) developing structure-process-property correlations to reproducibly induce high crystallinity and tortuous hierarchical structures starting from a range of polymer chain architectures. The research on future processing strategies will inform the use of single polymer types serving multiple purposes in a product design, reducing the number of polymers employed across the industry as well as other materials such as metallized foils, paper layers, and additives that adversely impact the recyclability of flexible packaging. By the end of the project, we aim to: (1) demonstrate technical feasibility of all-polyolefin barrier films using layer multiplying melt-mastication, (2) deliver a predictive model relating polymer and film structure to process conditions and performance in melt-masticated polymer multilayers, and (3) produce a model of the energy and life cycle characteristics of the process. The research plan includes educational workshops for advancing plastics sustainability knowledge, and community webinars to impact plastics sustainability more broadly. Recruitment of students from underrepresented groups, targeted manufacturing education activities, and outreach to local communities for workforce development training will enrich the research, increase its relevance, and result in tangible diversity, equity, and inclusion outcomes.This Future Manufacturing award was supported by co-funding from the Chemical, Biological, Environmental Engineering and Transport Systems Division, and the Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation Division in the Directorate for Engineering, and the Division of Materials Research in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences.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.

全世界对食品，医疗产品和消费品的高度功能柔性包装的需求正在增长，但一次性塑料也有助于环境污染。当前的材料由于其异质性和相关挑战而在收集，分离，清洁和重新处理方面不可回收。尽管化学回收方法正在迅速发展，但这些方法需要高能量输入，并且固有的材料值却丢失了。该项目将通过创建一种来自单一聚合物类型的高性能屏障膜的制造过程来增加灵活膜的回收利用。工业，经济和社会福利分别包括：（1）薄膜中高批量应用的功能性能增强，（2）与当前处理系统兼容的技术驱动的成本竞争力，以及（3）由简化材料系统启用的塑料回收。研究计划包括行业研讨会，用于推进新型塑料处理技术以及教育网络研讨会，以更广泛地影响塑料可持续性。这项研究将研究旨在用多种多样的分子重量结构的多乙烯替代传统多层包装系统的新材料处理策略，以实现已知的最佳甲级甲壳度。这些策略需要提高对聚合物形态的理解和控制，特别是：（1）表征熔体塑料动力学，（2）随着层乘积超声处理的扩展，以及（3）开发结构过程，以重复启动以诱导高结晶度和曲折的层次结构，并从一系列Polymer Chainer Chanderecters构建范围启动。对未来加工策略的研究将为产品设计中的多种用途的单一聚合物类型提供信息，从而减少了整个行业中使用的聚合物数量以及其他材料，例如金属化的箔，纸质层和添加剂，从而不利地影响了柔性包装的可回收性。到项目结束时，我们的目标是：（1）使用层乘积熔体塑料层展示了全螺二烯屏障膜的技术可行性，（2）提供了一个预测模型，将聚合物和膜结构与过程条件与过程条件和性能相关的模型，并在融化的聚合物多层中的过程和性能，以及（3）产生能量和生命周期特征的模型。该研究计划包括促进塑料可持续性知识的教育研讨会，以及社区网络研讨会，以更广泛地影响塑料可持续性。招募来自代表性不足的群体，有针对性的制造教育活动以及向当地社区提供劳动力发展培训的学生的招募，将丰富研究，提高其相关性，并导致有形的多样性，公平性和包容性结果。未来的制造奖由化学，生物，环境工程和机械部门的工具部门共同筹集该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛的影响标准通过评估来支持的。