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

I-Corps：源自回收塑料废物的功能性碳添加剂

• 批准号: 2201638
• 负责人: Zhe Qiang
• 金额: $ 5万
• 依托单位: University of Southern Mississippi
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-01-15 至 2024-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2201638&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Corps; Functional; carbon; additives; derived

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.

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛的影响/商业潜力是开发一种可实用且可推广的技术，用于从聚烯及其废物中生产碳产品。虽然聚集素代表了最广泛的聚合物类别，但它们也为大多数塑料废物做出了贡献，这些废物对环境和社会的可持续发展施加了严重的风险。当前与聚集素相关的废物管理策略包括垃圾填埋，焚化以及价值较低的产品。该项目将着重于商业化简单，可扩展的过程，以提供有效的塑料升级解决方案。相关的技术可以通过将其转换为功能性碳产品来显着增加聚烯烃废物的价值。这些碳可以用作常规塑料制造的添加剂，用作财产修饰符和增强剂。此外，修复的塑料污染代表了强劲的社会需求，以相应的回收行业的爆炸性增长为例。此外，该项目还提供了刺激周围地区塑料回收和升级基础设施的绝佳机会，促进了相应行业的本地经济发展。该I-Corps项目基于将多烯烃衍生的塑料废物升级为功能性的，增值的碳材料的开发。该项目中的核心技术结合了酸增强的交联化学与优化的反应条件，以热稳定聚烯烃材料，从而使它们成为有效的碳前体，在氮气大气下高温热解后至少有65％的产率。此过程具有成本效益，并且可能会缩放以产生具有高度石墨化，高孔隙率和杂原掺杂框架的碳。此外，此过程的简单性可以通过仔细的系统设计有效地转换为工业相关的量表。在理解处理条件与产生的材料特性之间的基本关系的基础上，该技术还可以轻松控制导热性和电导率，吸附性能以及通过操纵处理条件的产生碳添加剂的机械性能。该技术的成功商业化和及时分配将导致一种在经济上可行的解决方案，以解决至少数百万吨的塑料废物，这直接解决了最紧迫的环境和社会挑战之一。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的知识和更广泛的影响来评估的，并被认为是值得的。