Recycling Archives

Mechanochemistry: A new route to sustainable polymer recycling

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Junpeng Wang investigates how mechanochemistry and chemical unlocking can be used in combination to prepare degradable polymers that are otherwise too challenging to synthesise using standard synthetic routes.

Plastics and rubbers are some of the most important materials in advanced societies, and hundreds of millions of tonnes are produced every year. Devising efficient and cost-effective ways to recycle these materials has become a crucial environmental concern. Although degradable plastic-based materials can be produced, their practical use is limited by their vulnerability under environmental stress. Professor Junpeng Wang and […]

The life of a lithium-ion battery

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A review of lithium-ion batteries for Research Outreach issue 133

If you’re reading this on a laptop or mobile phone, it’s likely powered by a lithium-ion battery – a huge amount of our everyday technology, from computers to medical devices and electric vehicles, relies on them. With so much demand, it’s no surprise that there is a significant amount of research into maximising the efficiency of lithium-ion batteries and working […]

World Cleanup Day 2022: Help #cleanup our planet

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World Cleanup Day 2022 - a globe is wrapped in a plastic bag

Put on your rubber gloves and help #cleanup the planet on World Cleanup Day 2022. This 17th of September, millions of international volunteers will join forces to pick up trash and remove waste that pollutes the Earth. Let’s Do It World leads the collective effort to rid the world of pollution, mobilised into action by the horrific truth that only […]

Waste management and transition to a circular economy

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Dr Pekka Peura reviews the evolution of a waste-management system which has been in place since 1984 in Finland, driving the move to a circular economy

As opposition to society’s ‘throwaway culture’ grows, so does the realisation that recycling and waste management are not only needed but desired by the public. Dr Pekka Peura at VEBIC, University of Vaasa, Finland, in collaboration with Dr Olli Voutilainen of the Natural Resources Institute Finland and Professor Jussi Kantola of the University of Turku, review the evolution of a […]

Closing the loop: Upcycling plastic waste for carbon capture

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Two of the most important environmental concerns of our times are CO2 emissions and plastic pollution. Dr Xiangzhou Yuan, Research Professor at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Korea University (Seoul), and Dr Shuai Deng, Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the School of Tianjin University (China), propose an approach that uses one problem to solve the other. […]

Recycling de-inked paper sludge in plant growing substrates

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The recycled paper industry produces tons of waste with resulting disposal costs and environmental impacts. Francesca Bretzel from the Institute of Research on Terrestrial Ecosystems, National Research Council of Italy, and colleagues examined the suitability of de-inked paper sludge (DPS), in pellet form, as a sustainable component of growing media for plants. Their studies include its use in substrates for […]