Recycling Multilayer Plastic Packaging by Solvent-Targeted Recovery and Precipitation Webinar

The Solvent-Targeted Recovery and Precipitation (STRAP) process is a platform technology for recycling multicomponent plastics, including multilayer plastic films. I will describe the basic principles of the STRAP process, in which target polymer components from multilayer plastic films are recovered using sequential solvent washes. Each wash is designed to selectively dissolve a single component from the waste, which can then be recovered after precipitation induced either by addition of an antisolvent or by lowering the temperature. The key technical challenge for STRAP is designing solvent compositions and process steps to achieve efficient and economical polymer recovery. We are addressing this challenge by integrating experimental and computational techniques to design possible solvent systems, predict process economics, and characterize recovered material. I will summarize our development of computational tools for solvent selection and their integration with process modeling tools. I will then describe recent experimental applications of STRAP to a variety of feedstocks, including rigid and flexible multilayer plastic films.

Learning Outcomes

1. Explain the basic principles of the STRAP process
2. Compare pros and cons of the STRAP process and recovered materials to other recycling processes

Reid Van Lehn is the Hunt-Hougen Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT then performed research as a NIH Ruth-Kirschstein postdoctoral fellow at Caltech. He joined UW-Madison in May 2016, where his research group uses molecular simulations and data-centric methods to characterize, predict, and engineer the behavior of synthetic and biological soft materials for applications relevant to human health, sustainability, and energy. He is also a Topic Area Leader for the Center for the Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics (CUWP) and a Co-Investigator of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC).