Papers

61,005 results
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Article Tier 2

Strategies and technologies for sustainable plastic waste treatment and recycling

This review covers current and emerging methods for recycling and treating plastic waste to reduce environmental pollution. The authors emphasize that improperly managed plastics break down into microplastics that contaminate ecosystems, and they evaluate strategies including chemical recycling, biodegradation, and energy recovery as more sustainable alternatives to landfilling.

2025 Environmental Functional Materials 10 citations
Article Tier 2

Perspectives on sustainable plastic treatment: A shift from linear to circular economy

This review examines emerging technologies for converting plastic waste into useful chemicals and fuels, including methods like pyrolysis, photocatalysis, and electrocatalysis. Researchers highlight how these approaches could shift plastic management from a throw-away model to a circular economy where waste becomes a resource. The study identifies remaining knowledge gaps and proposes future research directions for sustainable plastic treatment.

2024 TrAC Trends in Analytical Chemistry 32 citations
Article Tier 2

Are Reliable and Emerging Technologies Available for Plastic Recycling in a Circular Economy?

This review examines the current landscape of plastic recycling technologies -- including mechanical, thermal, chemical, and biological depolymerization methods such as pyrolysis -- evaluating their readiness for circular economy integration. It concludes that while recycling rates remain below 10% globally, emerging technologies offer pathways toward closed-loop plastic supply chains, though full-scale implementation requires further development and performance assessment.

2022 IntechOpen eBooks 2 citations
Article Tier 2

A State-of-the-Art Review on the Technological Advancements for the Sustainable Management of Plastic Waste in Consort with the Generation of Energy and Value-Added Chemicals

This review examined technological advances for converting plastic waste into energy and value-added chemicals, covering pyrolysis, gasification, and catalytic processes as sustainable alternatives to landfilling, given that global plastic waste generation reached approximately 380 million tonnes in 2022.

2023 Catalysts 37 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

Green Technologies for Plastic Pollutant Waste Management

This review surveys green technologies for managing plastic pollution, covering biological degradation, photocatalysis, and advanced oxidation processes, and assessing their feasibility for large-scale microplastic remediation.

2024 1 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging Technologies for Converting Mixed Plastic Waste into Biodegradable Polymers

Scientists are developing new ways to turn mixed plastic waste (like food containers and shopping bags) into biodegradable materials that naturally break down instead of polluting the environment. This research review summarizes promising techniques that could help reduce the microplastics that end up in our food and water. If these methods can be made affordable and used widely, they could significantly cut plastic pollution and the health risks it poses to humans.

2026 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

Reimagining plastics waste as energy solutions: challenges and opportunities

This review examines the potential of converting plastic waste into energy through waste-to-energy and waste-to-fuel technologies, particularly in developing nations where recycling infrastructure is limited. Researchers assessed various conversion methods including pyrolysis and gasification, evaluating their efficiency and environmental trade-offs. The study emphasizes that energy recovery from plastic waste could help address both the growing plastic pollution crisis and energy needs in underserved regions.

2024 npj Materials Sustainability 26 citations
Article Tier 2

New Progress in Plastic Degradation and Conversion by Photocatalysis

This review examines advances in photocatalytic plastic degradation and conversion, covering both the plastic pollution crisis driven by microplastic formation and innovative recycling approaches including primary, secondary, tertiary, and quaternary methods.

2024 ACS symposium series
Article Tier 2

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.

2024 Chinese Science Bulletin (Chinese Version) 3 citations
Article Tier 2

New Technologies are Needed to Improve the Recycling and Upcycling of Waste Plastics

This editorial review highlighted urgent needs and emerging chemical technologies for improving the recycling and upcycling of waste plastics, covering challenges related to end-of-life plastic valorization.

2021 ChemSusChem 31 citations
Article Tier 2

Integrated approaches for plastic waste management

This review surveys the full spectrum of approaches — recycling, biodegradation by microbes, and chemical or physical treatment — for managing the enormous global volume of plastic waste that otherwise persists in the environment for hundreds of years. The authors argue that no single method is sufficient and that an integrated strategy combining multiple techniques is needed to prevent plastics from fragmenting into environmentally harmful microplastics. The review provides a useful overview for policymakers and researchers looking to reduce plastic pollution at scale.

2024 Frontiers in Microbiology 2 citations
Article Tier 2

A Comprehensive Review on the Thermochemical Treatment of Plastic Waste to Produce High Value Products for Different Applications

This review summarizes methods for converting plastic waste into valuable products using high-temperature chemical processes like pyrolysis and plasma technology. These approaches can produce hydrogen fuel, carbon nanotubes, and other useful materials from plastic that would otherwise become pollution. Reducing plastic waste through better recycling technology is important because most microplastic pollution originates from improperly managed plastic products.

2025 Materials Circular Economy 22 citations
Article Tier 2

Recovery of plastic waste through its thermochemical degradation: a review

This review examines pyrolysis as a promising technology for recovering valuable chemical compounds from plastic waste, which reached approximately 368 million tons of global production in 2020 alone. Researchers discuss how thermal and catalytic degradation can convert different types of thermoplastics into high-energy-value products. The study also highlights the environmental and health impacts of plastic accumulation, including the effects of microplastic consumption on human and animal health.

2023 Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 11 citations
Article Tier 2

Emerging Technologies for Converting Mixed Plastic Waste into Biodegradable Polymers

Scientists are developing new ways to turn mixed plastic waste (like food containers and shopping bags all jumbled together) into materials that naturally break down in the environment, instead of lasting forever like regular plastic. This research review shows these emerging technologies could help solve our plastic pollution problem by preventing more microplastics from forming and contaminating our food and water. If these methods can be scaled up, they could transform how we handle plastic waste and reduce health risks from tiny plastic particles that are increasingly found in our bodies.

2026 Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Article Tier 2

A comprehensive review of recycling and reusing methods for plastic waste focusing Indian scenario

This comprehensive review examines global plastic waste management strategies with a focus on India, covering technologies from mechanical reprocessing and pyrolysis to advanced methods like supercritical water conversion and plasma-assisted processing. Researchers evaluated the scalability, limitations, and environmental trade-offs of each approach, noting persistent challenges with microplastic pollution. The study draws on patents and case studies to highlight practical pathways for improving plastic recycling and reducing environmental contamination.

2025 Waste Management & Research The Journal for a Sustainable Circular Economy 6 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic waste management for sustainable environment: techniques and approaches

Researchers reviewed current plastic waste removal techniques — including adsorption, photocatalysis, and microbial degradation — and alternative resource recovery strategies, evaluating their efficiency, underlying mechanisms, and potential for converting plastic waste into adsorbents, fuels, or construction materials.

2023 Waste Disposal & Sustainable Energy 131 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

Recent advances and challenges in sustainable management of plastic waste using biodegradation approach

This review provides a comprehensive overview of plastic biodegradation as a sustainable strategy for managing plastic waste accumulation. Researchers surveyed recent breakthroughs in identifying microorganisms and enzymes capable of breaking down various plastic polymers under relatively mild conditions. The study highlights that while biodegradation shows promise as an eco-friendly alternative to conventional waste management, significant challenges remain in scaling these approaches for practical application.

2023 Bioresource Technology 90 citations
Article Tier 2

Plastic Waste Recycling, Applications, and Future Prospects for a Sustainable Environment

This review examines emerging plastic waste recycling strategies including microwave, plasma, and supercritical water conversion, highlighting applications in construction, fuel production, and nanomaterials for a circular economy.

2022 Sustainability 117 citations
Article Tier 2

Recycling and Management of Microplastic Waste

This review examines recycling and management strategies for plastic waste, describing the technical and economic challenges of reducing plastic pollution and the remediation approaches that have been attempted to address microplastic accumulation in the environment.

2025 ˜The œBioscan.
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

[Research progress on the feasibility of carbonization treatment for addressing plastic residual pollution].

This review examines emerging carbonization technologies as alternatives to traditional plastic waste disposal methods like landfilling and incineration. Researchers found that techniques such as co-thermal decomposition and hydrothermal carbonization can convert plastic waste into valuable carbon materials like biochar, which can then be used for microplastic adsorption and soil remediation. The study notes that challenges including unclear reaction mechanisms and high energy costs still hinder large-scale application.

2026 PubMed
Article Tier 2

Thermochemical and chemo-biological molecular recycling of plastic waste and plastic-biomass waste mixtures: an updated review

This review covers thermochemical and chemo-biological approaches to recycling plastic waste and plastic-biomass waste mixtures into valuable building block molecules. The study highlights that while thermochemical and bioprocessing methods show promise, the chemo-enzymatic treatment of mixed plastic-biomass waste streams remains an open challenge due to their diverse composition.

2025 RSC Sustainability 6 citations