Green Chemistry<\/em>.<\/p>\nIncreasing the sustainability of polymeric membranes<\/h3>\n
Ram\u00edrez Mart\u00ednez said: \u201cTraditional plastic membrane fabrication approaches mostly use pristine fossil-based, non-renewable materials, which has a negative environmental impact and contradicts the sustainability benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to take polymeric membrane sustainability one step further by replacing some of the conventional materials used for their fabrication with bio-based solvents and waste plastics, following the principles of circular economy and green chemistry.\u201d<\/p>\n
She continued: \u201cPolyolefin plastic membranes make up almost half of all discarded items in plastic waste streams. Polyolefins are very popular due to their low cost and high thermal and chemical stability. We find them in food packaging, reusable bags, shampoo bottles, toys, and many more products.\u201d<\/p>\n
Overcoming challenges of processing polyolefins<\/h3>\n
These properties make polyolefins attractive for producing hydrophobic, microporous plastic membranes for oil purification and other industrial purification processes.<\/p>\n
However, the main challenges for processing polyolefins into porous membranes are the high temperatures required to dissolve them \u2014 commonly between 140-250\u00b0C \u2014 and the limited range of solvents that can be used, most of them fossil-fuel based.<\/p>\n
Through their research, the team has demonstrated that two bio-based solvents can significantly improve the sustainability of this process. \u201cWe found that terpenes \u2014 naturally abundant renewable solvents derived from non-food biomass \u2014 could dissolve polyolefins at just 130\u00b0C,\u201d Ram\u00edrez Mart\u00ednez said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSecondly, using these solvents, we successfully made polypropylene membranes using plastic waste from food packaging, transforming single-use plastics into high-performance materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
These membranes proved adept at separating the water-in-oil emulsions that specific industrial processes can generate. \u201cThe rejection values and oil purity we recorded were comparable to state-of-the-art membranes reported in the literature,\u201d Ram\u00edrez Mart\u00ednez commented. \u201cWe consider it a great achievement to have proved that membranes prepared from plastic waste can have a competitive performance compared to those made from pristine materials.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suzana Nunes concluded: \u00a0“Polyolefins are soluble only in a few solvents such as decalin. Finding solvent alternatives, particularly bio-based solvents, is relevant not only for membrane fabrication.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Researchers have developed plant-derived biosolvents to enable the sustainable conversion of plastic waste into valuable membrane materials.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":29572,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[24433],"tags":[24543,3365],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Upcycled plastic membrane could solve plastic pollution problem<\/title>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\n\n\n\n\n\t\n\t\n\t\n