High efficiency value-added bulk recycling of polymers by solid state shear milling

每年生产超过3亿吨塑料，预计在未来20年内将翻一番。塑料已成为日常生活中许多方面的重要材料，但塑料固体废物（PSW）的产生正成为一个日益严重的问题，例如每年有800万吨塑料废物进入海洋，对海洋生态系统产生巨大影响。一些相对清洁和易于分离的废塑料类型可以经济地回收，例如饮料瓶，回收水平正在提高，但许多聚合物材料更难以回收，例如含有不能再熔化的不同聚合物材料的复合材料，例如橡胶轮胎和印刷电路板。因此，全世界迫切需要开发新的技术和经济上可行的方法来回收这些类型的材料。这与循环经济的概念相一致，循环经济旨在保持产品和材料的使用，并设计出废物和污染。我们的中英联合团队旨在开发一种工业规模的连续工艺，以高效地成功回收和再制造目前难以回收的大宗废物流。将开发一种连续研磨工艺，将固体聚合物废物分解成具有受控特性的细粉，然后再加工成增值产品。我们将进行实验，以了解研磨过程的机制，以及如何针对特定的废物流进行优化。我们将对生产的材料进行分析，并研究将这些粉末转化为有用的增值产品的不同方法。我们将联合收割机结合中国和英国团队的独特技能和优势，以解决我们两国面临的关键问题-通过有效的再利用途径有效减少大量的塑料废物。该提案建立在布拉德福德聚合物IRC世界级研究实验室和四川大学高分子材料工程国家重点实验室（SKLPME）之间过去十年非常成功的研究合作基础上，SKLPME是我们RCUK布拉德福德科学桥中国平台的重要和国际获奖部分。

Over 300 million tonnes of plastic is produced annually and this is expected to double over the next 20 years. Plastics have become vital materials in many aspects of everyday life but the generation of plastics solid waste (PSW) is becoming an increasing problem, for example 8 million tonnes of plastic waste finds its way into the oceans each year, having a huge impact on marine ecosystems. Some relatively clean and easy to separate types of waste plastics can be recycled economically, such as drinks bottles, and levels of recycling are increasing but many polymeric materials are much more difficult to recycle, for example composites containing different materials of polymers which cannot be re-melted such as rubber tyres and printed circuit boards. As such there is an urgent need worldwide to develop new technically and economically feasible methods to recycle these types of materials. This aligns with the concept of a circular economy which seeks to keep products and materials in use and design out waste and pollution. Our joint UK-China team aims to develop an industrial scale continuous process to successfully recycle and re-manufacture currently difficult to recycle bulk waste streams, with high efficiency. A continuous milling process will be developed to break down solid polymeric waste into fine powders with controlled properties, which can then be reprocessed into value-added products. We will perform experiments to understand the mechanisms of the milling process and how these can be opitimised for particular waste streams. We will characterise the materials produced and examine different ways of turning these powders into useful, value-added products. We combine unique skills and strengths of our Chinese and UK groups to address key issues facing both of our countries - effectively reducing the significant amount of plastic waste with efficient routes to re-use. This proposal builds on the highly successful research collaborations over the last decade between the world-class research laboratories of the Polymer IRC at Bradford and Sichuan University State Key Laboratory for Polymer Materials Engineering (SKLPME), an important and international award-winning part of our RCUK Bradford Science Bridges China platform.