The plastic pollution crisis is also an energy crisis with an estimated 20% of fossil fuel consumption going towards plastic production by the year 2050. Current polymerization processes do not offer much potential for efficiency improvements and energy demand reduction. Additionally, only mechanical recycling is employed at scale, which has limited life cycles due to contamination and degradation of the polymer. Thus, the most promising decarbonization options for the U.S. plastic industry involve system-wide changes and the integration of a bio-/waste-based supply chain with a plastic-to-plastic circular economy loop based on innovative recycling techniques to recover the plastic waste. The Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE™) Consortium is a U.S. Department of Energy multi-organization consortium focused on developing new chemical upcycling strategies for today's plastics and redesigning tomorrow's plastics to be recyclable-by-design. This talk will focus on BOTTLE research on plastic deconstruction and upcycling and various research projects in this space.

Plastics deconstruction and upcycling in the bottle consortium

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.