Researchers at UK’s University of Birmingham (www.birmingham.ac.uk), with engineering company Stopford (Manchester, UK; www.stopford.co.uk), have secured GBP 300,000 (EUR 341,000) to develop a chemical recycling process that uses hot compressed water to selectively depolymerise waste plastics into commodity materials, which can then be processed to produce virgin materials.

In a statement the research team said their system exploits the unique behaviour of water above a certain temperature and pressure where it exhibits reduced polarity, high solvating power for complex polymers, like plastics. “By virtue of combined intermediate heat and high pressure, it decomposes polymers at ‘selective spots’, thus producing target products at high proportions,” the researches added.

Related: University teams develop two sugar-based polymers with common plastics-like qualities

The latest round of funding has been awarded by UK Research and Innovation’s Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge to adapt the teams’ platform technology to PET-based plastics waste such as pots, salad trays, and tubs. It ties in with the team’s ongoing work to establish a demonstrator facility at Birmingham’s Tyseley Energy Park for the recycling of polyolefin-based plastics.

Bushra Al-Duri, professor of Sustainable Process Engineering at the University of Birmingham’s School of Chemical Engineering, and inventor of the platform technology, said, “Supercritical water technology is exciting, intriguing, and challenging. We are dedicated to remain on the road of alleviating the upcoming challenges with science, engineering, and with working as one team of complementing skills.”