Ocean trash and overflowing landfills have drawn widespread attention to the plastic waste that we put into our environment. In response, communities around the world work hard to reduce, reuse, and recycle. But what does it mean for something to be recyclable? A research team led by Guoliang “Greg” Liu, associate professor of chemistry in the College of Science, is working to expand the frontiers of plastic recycling.
Many of us are comfortable tossing a metal can or a glass jar into the recycling bin without a second thought. But plastics are a bit different. Not every recycling plant is equipped to handle every type of plastic. That’s because the chemistry and structure of plastic materials are diverse, and each type requires a specific recycling procedure.
In a perfect world, perhaps there would be recycling plants all over the world equipped to handle every kind of plastic imaginable. But we’re not there yet, due in part to the fact that some plastics are very difficult to recycle, and we have yet to develop effective, practical techniques for processing them.
Polystyrene is one such challenging material. Best known as a major component in Styrofoam, polystyrene is widely used but rarely recycled. Many municipal recycling facilities instruct residents (including those in Blacksburg) not to put polystyrene in their home recycling bins.
Currently, the main method for recycling polystyrene yields a product that is often too low-quality to make the process economically viable. In other words, if a recycling plant tries to recycle polystyrene on a large scale, it will either need a financial boost, such as a government subsidy, or the operation risks running out of money and shutting down.
One solution to this problem is to improve the recycling process so that it becomes economically viable, or even better, economically attractive. With his experience in polymer chemistry and as an affiliate of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute, this is exactly what Liu was able to guide his team to do.
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