Tuning Supercritical Water for Polymer Recycling to Monomers and Chemicals

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In this NSERC Alliance-Mitacs Accelerate project, we will work with Aduro Clean Technology Inc. (ACT) to develop a new economically viable continuous process focusing on sub/supercritical water (SCW) for intractable polymer recycling. Initial work will focus on water as the solvent, as we have developed a previous continuous process with Aduro using water for converting fatty acids from corn distillers waste into green diesel. Aduro have developed a small pilot unit in Sarnia, Ontario based on our labs previous results for corn conversion. Our goal in this project is to develop an environmentally-responsible upcycling process that can handle both diverse mixed plastic wastes and intractable plastics found in todays and tomorrows landfills. Our methodology will be to develop a multi-stage reactor system with each stage controlled under different experimental conditions. Firsty we will remove valuable products such as additives, carbon fibers, then chemically convert the remainder catalytically to valuable chemicals including monomers and aromatics. A pyrolytic end-process for treating waste materials from this process will be examined which can be utilized by Sarnia refiners. Our goal is to minimize carbon loss through this novel reactor design process, examining both model polymeric systems and real waste streams. We will develop a new analytical view-cell method to allow us to measure dissolution and depolymerization kinetics under the process conditions of interest in water to facilitate our reactor design and process modeling. For the catalytic process to monomers and chemicals, the process parameters including temperature, pressure, catalyst type, residence time, and water to feed ratios will be studied with kinetic models developed suitable for scale-up. The students will work with the ACT team to develop a pilot plant at their Sarnia, Ontario facility that can demonstrate this technology. This project will help lower Canada's carbon waste while supporting the circular economy, helping to eliminate a current waste problem while providing a new cleantech solution and value chain for the Canadian economy.