I-Corps: Efficient Chemical Upcycling of Plastic Waste to Value Added Products

I-Corps项目的广泛影响/商业潜力是减少堆填区或污染环境的塑料废物的数量，并调查将塑料废物从堆填区转移的活动的商业潜力。塑料垃圾对现代社会来说是一个巨大的问题，因为一次性塑料产品涉及生活的方方面面，减少使用、回收利用或寻找替代材料并不能完全解决这个问题。此外，塑料渗入环境会破坏生态系统。这个I-Corps项目是基于技术的发展，有选择地和有效地将塑料转化为用于高价值应用的化学产品。这种方法利用催化和化学转化来破坏高分子的长碳链。该计划将寻求了解影响化学转化的参数和反应条件如何影响这种转化的商业机会和限制，以及必须考虑的技术创新的其他因素。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 to reduce the amount of landfilled or environmentally polluting plastic waste and to investigate the commercial potential of activities that divert plastic waste from landfill. Plastic waste is a massive problem for modern society because single-use plastic products touch all aspects of life, and reducing their use, recycling, or finding alternative materials cannot fully address the problem. In addition, plastics that leach into the environment damage ecosystems. This I-Corps project is based on the development of technology that selectively and efficiently transforms plastics into chemical products for use in high value applications. This approach employs catalysis and chemical conversions to break the long carbon chains of polymer macromolecules. This program will seek to understand how the parameters and reaction conditions that affect the chemical transformation also affect the commercial opportunities and limitation of such conversions, as well as other factors that must be considered for innovation of the technology.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.