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Article Tier 2

Recent Progress in Polyolefin Plastic: Polyethylene and Polypropylene Transformation and Depolymerization Techniques

This review covers new methods for breaking down polyethylene and polypropylene, the two most common types of plastic, into reusable materials. Since mechanical recycling only handles a small fraction of plastic waste, chemical approaches like pyrolysis and hydrogenolysis offer more promising solutions. These techniques are important because the breakdown of these same plastics into microplastics is a major source of environmental and health contamination.

2024 Molecules 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Valorisation of plastic waste via metal-catalysed depolymerisation

This review covers metal-catalysed depolymerisation approaches for recycling and upcycling waste plastics back into monomers or value-added chemicals, highlighting recent advances in catalyst design that improve selectivity and yield for common polymer types.

2021 Beilstein Journal of Organic Chemistry 57 citations
Article Tier 2

Application of Different Chemical Recycling for Plastics

This review examines chemical recycling methods for plastic waste as alternatives to mechanical recycling, focusing on depolymerization via solvolysis, pyrolysis, and purification processes applicable to PET, polyurethane, and polystyrene. The authors discuss how these approaches convert polymer waste back into feedstock monomers that can be repolymerized, addressing value degradation and sorting limitations inherent to mechanical recycling.

2022 Highlights in Science Engineering and Technology 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastics Recycling

This review examines the full landscape of plastic recycling, covering mechanical and chemical recycling processes for major resin types including PE, HDPE, LDPE, PET, polyurethanes, polystyrene, and polypropylene, alongside chemical upcycling of waste plastics into higher-value products. The chapter also addresses the environmental and economic benefits of recycling, plastic resin labelling systems, and the persistent challenges limiting recycling rates globally.

2025
Article Tier 2

Current Advances and Challenges in Chemical Recycling of Polymeric Materials

This review examines current advances and remaining challenges in chemical recycling of polymeric materials as an alternative to mechanical recycling, which degrades material properties with repeated cycling. The authors discuss the high efficiency and simpler preprocessing requirements of chemical recycling methods against a backdrop of approximately 150 million metric tonnes of annual global plastic waste generation.

2023 Preprints.org 4 citations
Article Tier 2

On technological solutions for recycling of recycling of polymer waste: A review

This paper is not directly about microplastics; it reviews technological approaches to recycling polymer waste — mechanical, chemical, and energy-based methods — and analyzes their economic and environmental trade-offs. Better plastic recycling technology is relevant to microplastic prevention insofar as it reduces the amount of plastic that degrades into environmental microplastic particles.

2024 E3S Web of Conferences 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Polymerization in the Borstar Polypropylene Hybrid Process: Combining Technology and Catalyst for Optimized Product Performance

This technical review describes how the Borstar polypropylene manufacturing process, combined with specific catalysts, enables production of polypropylene with tailored properties — covering a fundamental plastic production technology.

2022 Polymers 7 citations
Article Tier 2

Comparsion of Catalyst Effectiveness in Different Chemical Depolymerization Methods of Poly(ethylene terephthalate)

This review compares the effectiveness of different catalysts used in chemical recycling methods for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic. The study covers hydrolysis, methanolysis, glycolysis, and other depolymerization approaches, comparing key process parameters like temperature, reaction time, and yields to help identify the most efficient PET recycling strategies.

2023 Molecules 31 citations
Article Tier 2

Recent Advances in Catalytic Chemical Recycling of Polyolefins

This review examines recent scientific advances in catalytic chemical recycling of polyolefins such as polyethylene and polypropylene, which account for nearly 50% of all plastic production by mass. Researchers highlight catalytic processes that can break down polyolefin waste at lower temperatures than pyrolysis, with the goal of upcycling discarded plastics into functional chemicals rather than sending them to landfill.

2023 ChemCatChem 82 citations
Article Tier 2

Research progress on chemical depolymerization and upcycling of PET waste plastics

This review examines recent advances in chemical methods for breaking down polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste plastics into useful raw materials. Researchers surveyed techniques including glycolysis, methanolysis, hydrolysis, and aminolysis that can convert PET back into monomers for reuse. The study highlights chemical depolymerization as a promising approach to reduce plastic pollution while recovering valuable materials from waste.

2025 Chinese Science Bulletin (Chinese Version) 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Expanding plastics recycling technologies: chemical aspects, technology status and challenges

This review examined the full life cycle of plastics and evaluated options for managing plastic waste, with a focus on chemical recycling technologies. The study suggests that overcoming barriers to industrial chemical recycling could open new opportunities for reducing plastic pollution.

2022 Green Chemistry 511 citations
Article Tier 2

Polymers Recycling: Upcycling Techniques. an Overview

This paper is not about microplastics in a research sense; it is an overview of polymer recycling and upcycling techniques, mentioning microplastic accumulation briefly as motivation but not investigating microplastics directly.

2023 Journal of the Chilean Chemical Society 6 citations
Article Tier 2

A Review on Plastic Pollution and Biodegradation of Polyethylene: Indian Region

This review examined plastic pollution and the biodegradation of polyethylene in the Indian context, surveying the broad category of organic polymers derived from petroleum, the acceleration of plastic use with population growth, and the microbial and chemical pathways by which polyethylene breaks down.

2022 Current World Environment 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Polymers and Microplastics: Implications on Our Environment and Sustainability

This review discusses the environmental implications of polymers and microplastics, covering their properties, production trends, degradation pathways, and ecological impacts. It highlights the tension between the industrial utility of plastics and their growing threat to environmental and human health.

2020 IntechOpen eBooks 2 citations
Article Tier 2

Polymer‐Based Recycling Strategies for Plastic Waste: A Comprehensive Review

This comprehensive review evaluates mechanical and chemical recycling strategies for plastic waste, noting that mechanical recycling is widely used but limited by polymer degradation, while chemical recycling offers higher quality recovery but at greater energy and financial cost. The study highlights emerging technologies including AI-assisted sorting, nanotechnology, and biodegradable polymer development as promising approaches for building a more circular plastics economy.

2026 Environmental Quality Management
Article Tier 2

Degradation and Recycling of Polymer Materials

This review synthesizes research on the degradation and recycling of polymer materials, covering microplastic formation, recycling strategies, and plastic degradation mechanisms as responses to the significant environmental damage caused by discarded plastics in ocean and other ecosystems.

2025
Article Tier 2

An Overview of the Non-Energetic Valorization Possibilities of Plastic Waste via Thermochemical Processes

This review surveys non-energetic valorization options for plastic waste through chemical recycling, covering solvolysis, enzymatic depolymerization, and catalytic cracking pathways that recover monomers or chemical feedstocks. The authors compare process maturity and economic viability, identifying PET and nylon depolymerization as the most commercially advanced chemical recycling routes.

2024 Materials 4 citations
Review Tier 2

A focused review on recycling and hydrolysis techniques of polyethylene terephthalate

This review examines techniques for recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET), one of the most common plastics found as microplastic pollution. Chemical recycling through hydrolysis shows the most promise for breaking PET back into its original building blocks for reuse. Improving PET recycling is important because reducing plastic waste at the source is one of the most effective ways to decrease microplastic contamination in the environment.

2023 Polymer Engineering and Science 154 citations
Article Tier 2

Thermal Characterization and Recycling of Polymers from Plastic Packaging Waste

Scientists collected and analyzed 23 random plastic packaging waste samples from food and non-food products in Greece, identifying polyethylene, PET, polypropylene, and polystyrene as the most common polymers. Using pyrolysis, they broke these plastics down into valuable chemical products including monomers like styrene and ethylene. The research demonstrates that better characterization and recycling of packaging waste could recover useful materials and help reduce the roughly 62% of plastic packaging that currently goes unrecycled in Europe.

2025 Polymers 4 citations
Article Tier 2

Process parameter optimization for waste polyethylene terephthalate bottle depolymerization using neutral hydrolysis

Researchers optimized process parameters for the neutral hydrolysis depolymerization of waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles as a chemical recycling strategy to address growing plastic waste accumulation in landfills. The study identified key conditions that improve depolymerization efficiency, offering a pathway to recover high-quality monomers from post-consumer PET.

2024 Research Square (Research Square) 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Microbial Degradation of Plastic Polymers

This review examines microbial degradation pathways for common synthetic plastics including polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, PVC, polyurethane, and PET, describing how mechanical and biological processes fragment plastics into microplastics and how microorganisms can be leveraged to address plastic pollution in aquatic and terrestrial environments.

2025
Article Tier 2

Synthetic Polymers

This chapter provides a broad overview of synthetic polymers, covering their production, uses, workplace toxicology, and environmental impact including microplastic pollution. It discusses how exposure to monomers, resins, and finished plastics can occur at every stage from manufacturing to end-of-life, and touches on recycling, carbon emissions, environmental degradation, and additives. The scope is wide rather than deep on microplastics specifically.

2023 Patty's Toxicology 3 citations
Article Tier 2

Materials

This overview examines plastic materials derived from fossil fuels, describing common polymer types (PE, PP, PS, PA, PET, ABS, PC) and their environmental persistence as microplastics, along with the role of additives in complicating recycling. Researchers found that mechanical recycling is lower-cost but degrades material performance, while chemical recycling restores primary properties at higher expense and ecological impact.

2025
Article Tier 2

Depolymerization of PMMA-Based Dental Resin Scraps on Different Production Scales

Not relevant to microplastics — this paper investigates the thermal depolymerization of waste dental PMMA resin in fixed-bed pyrolysis reactors to recover methyl methacrylate monomer, focused on chemical recycling rather than microplastic pollution.

2024 Energies 2 citations