Six Experts Discuss Innovations in Sustainable Products from Plastic Waste

In an insightful Thermo Fisher Scientific webinar series titled “Sustainable Products from Plastic Waste”, six leading experts explored advancements in recycling technologies and challenges in transforming plastic waste into sustainable products. The series emphasized improving recycling efficiency, material characterization, and scaling up processes for a circular economy. Below is a detailed summary of their key perspectives and findings.

Understanding Plastic Waste Types and Recycling Standards

Dr. Madina Shamsuyeva highlighted the difference between post-industrial and post-consumer plastic waste:

• Post-industrial waste arises during manufacturing and has consistent, pure composition, making it easier to recycle.
• Post-consumer waste comes after product use, containing complex, heterogeneous materials.
  She stressed the importance of classifying recyclates to enhance transparency and set clear recycling targets.

Polymer Rheology: Insights into Material Behavior

Dr. Ophélie Ranquet explained the Weissenberg effect, paralleling it to spaghetti climbing a fork:

• Polymers exhibit viscoelastic climbing under rotational stress, complicating rheological measurements.
• To reduce measurement inaccuracies, rheologists use oscillatory shear mode, enabling polymer relaxation between cycles and minimizing elastic instabilities.

Challenges in Using Recycled Polymers in a Circular Economy

Co-presenters Felix Mehrens and Niklas Rode addressed hurdles in processing recycled polymers:

• Recycled plastics often have inhomogeneous properties due to degradation, mechanical impacts, or contamination from mixed streams, unlike the uniformity of virgin polymers.
• Temperature variations influence material characterization, especially via Raman spectroscopy—mandating temperature-specific calibration models to ensure accurate composition predictions during extrusion processes.

Recycling Marine Plastic Waste: Mechanical Approaches and Material Blends

Dr. Annika Völp focused on the complexities of recycling marine plastic waste, which is heavily contaminated and degraded:

• She studied blending marine plastic with virgin low-density polyethylene (LDPE) to assess recyclate quality.
• Results showed thermal stability was generally preserved or improved, except where severely degraded polyamide (PA) was involved, underscoring the need for stringent sorting and monitoring.

Hybrid Mechanical-Chemical Recycling for Mixed Plastic Waste

Professor João Maia discussed limitations of current chemical recycling methods:

• Low processing capacity (~100,000 tons/year), high operational costs, significant CO₂ emissions, and contamination issues limit scale and efficiency.
• His team developed a hybrid mechanical-chemical in-melt separation technique using reactive extrusion to combine the strengths of both methods—achieving higher throughput, improved polymer quality, and effective separation of complex polymer blends like PE/PET.

Conclusion

The webinar series sheds light on cutting-edge science and technology guiding the future of sustainable plastics. From clear classification systems and improved testing methodologies to innovative recycling processes, these expert insights pave the way for more effective reuse of plastic waste, supporting a circular economy and reducing environmental footprints.

For Further Learning

Watch the full Sustainable Products from Plastic Waste webinar series hosted by Thermo Fisher Scientific for detailed discussions and technical demonstrations.

Citation

Thermo Fisher Scientific – Materials Characterization. (2025, October 02). Six Experts Talk Sustainable Products from Plastic Waste. AZoM. Retrieved October 14, 2025, from https://www.azom.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=24662.

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