2024 R&D 100 Award for Selective Mixed Plastic Recycling

Less than 10% of plastic waste is recycled. ORNL scientists have developed an extremely effective method that transforms a variety of plastic and mixed plastic wastes into valuable chemicals, thereby significantly decreasing the use of fossil fuels, greenhouse gas emissions and energy consumption.

The novel organocatalyst can deconstruct all kinds of bottles, packaging, foams, lenses, textiles and carpets, which often exist as mixed plastics and are very difficult to recycle by conventional technologies. This method provides a new pathway to produce valuable chemicals from mixed plastic wastes. This technology can transform the field of plastic recycling by adding significant commercial values because inefficiency or inability to convert various plastics and their mixture to valuable materials have been the major bottlenecks in plastic recycling. The technology has various benefits over current recycling technologies. Transforming plastic wastes to useful resources for chemical production by a new technology provides a critical strategy for achieving a decarbonized sustainable society.

This research was funded by the DOE Office of Science and ORNL’s Technology Innovation Program.

The work was done by ORNL staff Tomonori Saito, Md Arifuzzaman now at Re-Du, Bobby Sumpter, Changwoo Do, Zoriana Demchuk, Sheng Dai, Ilja Popovs, Jeff Foster, Nick Galan and Jackie Zheng; and Robert Davis from the University of Virginia. Re-Du is a Cohort 2023 Innovation Crossroads participant.