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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Complementary roles for mechanical and solvent-based recycling in low-carbon, circular polypropylene
ClearProcess Optimization of Solvents Assisted Polyethylene Waste Recycling
Researchers optimized solvent-based chemical recycling of polyethylene plastic waste to recover high-quality recycled material. The study demonstrates that chemical recycling can be tuned to maximize yield and quality, offering a scalable alternative to mechanical recycling that degrades plastic properties over time.
Assessing the environmental footprint of recycled plastic pellets: A life-cycle assessment perspective
This study used life-cycle assessment to evaluate the environmental impact of producing recycled plastic pellets from waste polyolefin plastics. While recycling reduced carbon emissions compared to making new plastic, the process still required significant energy, especially when solvent recovery was maximized. The research is relevant to the microplastics problem because it shows that even recycling processes need optimization to truly reduce the environmental footprint of plastic waste.
Evaluating Combination of Solvent-Based Recycling and Mechanical Recycling of ABS Materials for Mitigating Plastic Pollution and Promoting Environmental Consciousness
Researchers evaluated a hybrid recycling approach combining solvent-based and mechanical recycling of acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) materials, blending 70% virgin ABS with 30% recycled ABS across three production cycles for wiring devices. Mechanical testing showed that recycled ABS blends maintained comparable performance to virgin material, supporting its viability for mass production.
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.
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.
Recycling of Plastics as a Strategy to Reduce Life Cycle GHG Emission, Microplastics and Resource Depletion
This study quantified the environmental benefits of recycling widely consumed plastic polymers, demonstrating that increased plastic recycling significantly reduces life cycle greenhouse gas emissions, microplastic pollution, and resource depletion.
Strategic Possibility Routes of Recycled PET
This review examined chemical and mechanical recycling technologies for polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste, comparing glycolysis, methanolysis, hydrolysis, and enzymatic depolymerization routes in terms of yield, product purity, and scalability, and highlighting pathways most suitable for circular economy applications.
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.
Beyond processing methods: the impact of the drying technique on PET performance
This study investigated how different drying techniques affect PET polymer properties during recycling, finding that improper moisture removal causes hydrolytic degradation at high processing temperatures, with implications for maintaining material quality in circular economy PET recycling streams.
Kompozyty PET i ich zastosowanie w obliczu wyzwań zielonej chemii – przegląd literaturowy
This Polish-language literature review covers recycling technologies for PET packaging and its applications in a circular economy framework, discussing mechanical and chemical recycling methods, and the role of the 6R principle in sustainable material management. The review is not directly focused on microplastics research.
Potentials and limits of mechanical plastic recycling
Researchers modeled the future of plastic recycling in Switzerland through 2040, finding that even with improved waste collection and product design, mechanical recycling rates can only reach about 31% of plastic waste — reducing the carbon footprint of plastics by roughly one quarter. The study highlights that material complexity, contamination, and inaccessibility are major barriers, and that mechanical recycling alone cannot solve the plastic pollution crisis.
Mechanical Recycling of Thermoplastics: A Review of Key Issues
This review covers the key steps and challenges in mechanical recycling of thermoplastics, the most widely used industrial recycling method. Researchers discuss sorting technologies, decontamination processes, and how different types of plastics degrade during recycling. The study highlights strategies for improving the quality of recycled commodity plastics, engineering polymers, and bio-sourced materials to support the transition toward a circular economy.
Integration with biotechnological approaches for upcycling waste plastics
This review examines the limitations of mechanical, chemical, and thermal plastic recycling approaches — including restricted reprocessing cycles, high energy costs, and toxic emissions — and evaluates biotechnological strategies such as enzymatic and microbial degradation as complementary routes for waste plastic upcycling. The authors argue that integrating biological and chemical processes offers the most promising pathway for effective upcycling while reducing carbon emissions and advancing circular economy goals.
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.
Upcycling of waste plastics: strategies, status-quo, and prospects
This review examines strategies for upcycling waste plastics into valuable products as an alternative to landfilling and incineration, which generate microplastics and carbon emissions respectively. Researchers survey chemical recycling methods including pyrolysis, gasification, and catalytic processes that can convert common plastics like PET, polyethylene, and polystyrene into fuels, chemicals, and new materials. The study highlights the urgent need for more effective recycling technologies to address the growing gap between plastic production and waste management capacity.
Recycling of Polypropylene Recovered from a Composting Plant: Mechanical Behavior of Compounds with Virgin Plastic
Not directly relevant to microplastics — this paper investigates mechanical recycling of polypropylene recovered from a composting plant's waste stream, focusing on material properties after reprocessing.
Environmental Sustainability of Solvent Extraction Method in Recycling Marine Plastic Waste
A solvent-based dissolution-reprecipitation method successfully recovered high-density polyethylene and polypropylene from real marine plastic debris with recovery rates above 87%, while a lifecycle assessment showed the process has a lower environmental footprint than conventional plastic production. This offers a promising pathway to recycle ocean plastic back into usable materials rather than downcycling or landfilling it.
Disposal and resource utilization of waste masks: a review
Researchers reviewed current methods for disposing of and repurposing waste face masks — including mechanical recycling, catalytic pyrolysis for hydrogen production, and solvent-based dissolution — identifying solvent-based approaches as especially promising for converting mask polypropylene into multifunctional materials.
Global discharge of microplastics from mechanical recycling of plastic waste
Researchers found that the mechanical recycling process for plastics actually generates significant amounts of new microplastics, with global emissions from recycling projected to grow from 0.017 million tonnes in 2000 to 0.749 million tonnes by 2060. While recycling accounted for about 3.1% of total microplastic emissions in 2017, this share could grow as recycling increases. The study highlights an important paradox: efforts to reduce plastic waste through recycling can themselves contribute to microplastic pollution unless wastewater treatment at recycling facilities is improved.
Parametric Life Cycle Assessment of Chemical Recycling of Nylon-6 to Caprolactam
Researchers conducted the first life cycle assessment of four chemical recycling routes for converting waste nylon-6 back to its monomer caprolactam. The study found that a solvent-free alkaline process achieved approximately 80% reduction in global warming potential compared to fossil-based production, though none of the recycling routes fully met net-zero emission targets needed for limiting warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Recommendations for life-cycle assessment of recyclable plastics in a circular economy
This paper examines how life-cycle assessments of plastic recycling are often conducted inconsistently, leading to misleading conclusions about the environmental benefits of recycling. The authors recommend measuring impacts based on the amount of useful recycled product rather than waste processed, and expanding analysis beyond greenhouse gases to include plastic waste leaking into the environment. Better assessment methods could lead to more effective policies for reducing the plastic waste that ultimately becomes microplastic pollution.
Toward Economically Efficient Carbon Reduction: Contrasting Greening Plastic Supply Chains with Alternative Energy Policy Approaches
This paper is not directly about microplastics; it compares the carbon-reduction potential and cost-effectiveness of recycled plastics, bioplastics, and virgin plastics within supply chains, finding recycled plastics offer the best low-cost carbon reduction despite quality concerns.
The Frontier of Plastics Recycling: Rethinking Waste as a Resource for High‐Value Applications
This review examines the current state and future prospects of plastics recycling within a circular economy framework, arguing that mechanical recycling alone is insufficient and that chemical recycling, design-for-recyclability, and extended producer responsibility must all be scaled simultaneously. The authors identify high-value applications for recycled plastics as essential incentives for building economically sustainable recycling systems.
Chemical Recycling of Polycarbonate and Polyester without Solvent and Catalyst: Mechanochemical Methanolysis
This study presents a solvent-free, mechanochemical method for recycling polycarbonate and polyester plastics back into reusable monomers using ball-milling. This green approach could help reduce the accumulation of hard-to-recycle plastics that eventually fragment into microplastics in the environment.