Public Research Seminar by Advanced Materials Thrust, Function Hub, HKUST(GZ) - Chemical recycling of waste plastics
Supporting the below United Nations Sustainable Development Goals:支持以下聯合國可持續發展目標：支持以下联合国可持续发展目标：
Current global plastic production is around 380 million tons/year, only 14% of which is recycled. Most of them end up in landfill, environment, or incineration plants, polluting our ecosystem and leading to significant micro/nano-plastic issues. Developing an effective pathway to remove waste plastics from landfill and incineration plants and create a circular economy requires more appropriate technologies beyond the conventional mechanical recycling by melting and re-molding. I have developed a novel catalytic microwave-assisted pyrolysis technology to convert waste plastics to monomers for new plastic production and recover the non-condensable pyrolytic gas for graphene material and low carbon hydrogen for improving the commercial outlook. To improve the catalyst lifetime limitation, a hierarchically ordered macro-meso-microporous nano-sized zeolite catalyst has been developed for the catalytic pyrolysis of polyolefinic plastics for monomers (arenes and light olefins) production. The catalyst is able to last for more than 30 h in this reaction at the weight hourly space velocity of 20 /h. The non-condensable gas containing abundant carbon sources will be introduced into a chemical vapor deposition process for three-dimensional graphene material and hydrogen production. Our efforts will advance this technology to a larger commercial operation and help resolve the serious plastic waste issues facing the society.
Dr. Leilei Dai is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Minnesota, having earned his PhD from the same institution in 2022. His research is centered on the valorization of various solid wastes, including plastic waste, with the goal of creating green fuels, chemicals, and materials. He has co-authored over 90 articles in peer-reviewed journals and has a Google Scholar H-index of 44 with over 4,900 citations. He has been recognized on the "2022 World's Top 2% Scientists List" and the "2023 World’s Top 2% Scientists List," both published by Stanford University and Elsevier. Additionally, he serves on the editorial boards of several journals and acts as a reviewer for numerous journals.