Work package 1: Education through research
The 15 ESRs tackle major research challenges in their tailored PhD research projects, going beyond the current state of the art, achieving the five project’s objectives.
• OBJ 1. To decouple plastics from fossil resources
ESR 1: Priyanka Main assessed the mechanical recycling potential of the bioplastic PHB, instead of landfill or composting.
ESR 11: Amir Bashirgonbadi quantified the processability of PE-blends during film blowing and linked it to the rheology and macromolecular features of the polymer.
ESR 12: Ehsan Mahmoudi worked on the upgrade of the non-condensable gases towards propylene via cross-metathesis reaction, including catalyst synthesis, characterization and preliminary screening.
ESR 15: Christina Kibuta characterized in-depth a beach plastic feed and used innovative recycling technologies to clean the feed and use it as a source of secondary polymers.
• OBJ 2. To design for circularity, in terms of both materials and products
ESR 2: Dixit Gularia designed and developed a PE based mono material multilayer flexible packaging combining high functionality and recyclability.
ESR 3: Manon Lisiecki systematically evaluated a range of selected initiatives contributing to the implementation of circular economy.
ESR 4: Alejandro Fonseca studied the catalytic exchange reaction of phosphate esters with N-nucleophiles and tested several types of of phosphate esters to prepare phosphorous based flame retardants.
• OBJ 3. To involve the consumer as a stakeholder in a circular-economy future for plastics
ESR 5: Fernando Lit designed new business models for circular plastics to stimulate their market adoption through data collection and data analysis (coding).
ESR 6: Mubarik Rabiu conducted a qualitative interview study to reach an empirical understanding on consumer appropriation of two supply chain reversal strategies.
ESR 7: Namrata Mhaddolkar prepared a model to describe the relationship between drivers, waste producer behavior, waste collection and sorting system, and recyclability.
• OBJ 4. To develop efficient waste-to-resource technologies
ESR 8: Tiago Gomes characterized the causative odor-active constituents in post-consumer polypropylene bottles and identified the odorous molecules that are emitted.
ESR 9: Rita Kol performed the dissolution-precipitation technique on a real waste sample, with focus on the optimization of the solid-liquid separation process for the removal of colorants from plastic waste.
ESR 10: Bahman Goshayeshi modeled and simulated a reactor model with a focus on a plastic pyrolysis process capable of handling homogeneous reactions in each solid/liquid and gas phase, heterogeneous reactions between phases and evaporation of compounds.
ESR 11: Amir Bashirgonbadi quantified the processability of PE-blends during film blowing and linked it to the rheology and macromolecular features of the polymer.
ESR 12: Ehsan Mahmoudi worked on the upgrade of the non-condensable gases towards propylene via cross-metathesis reaction, including catalyst synthesis, characterization and preliminary screening.
• OBJ 5. To develop overarching strategies for circular plastics
ESR 13: Nur Gizem Yalcin analysed how the circular plastics economy is being developed in the EU and its member states, which interpretations of a circular plastics economy exists, whose definition dominates, why and how.
ESR 14: Heather Logan completed a literature review of mapping and life cycle assessments (LCA) published in peer reviewed journals to provide an overview of the quality of additive data inclusion in current modelling.
Work package 2: Education through international and cross-sectorial exchange
Each ESR conducted research in two different European countries (at least 6 months in each country), performing both an academic and a non-academic secondment. The non-academic sector is actively involved in the Network-Wide Training Event (NTEs) organized throughout the project duration.
Work package 3: Education through structured training courses
We have successfully launched the official Study Programme 'European Joint Doctoral Training Programme on Circular Plastics', which has already been successfully completed by several of the ESRs.
Work package 4: Education through participation in public outreach activities
Seven NTEs have successfully been organized. All publicly available results from the training events are disseminated via Zenodo and the C-PlaNeT website.
