Research into plastic recycling wins tender
Published: Monday, Jan 8th 2024, 10:40
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The Werner Siemens Foundation in Zug will support a research project on the circular economy with CHF 100 million over a period of ten years. A research team from Aachen (Germany) won the competition organized by the foundation to mark its 100th anniversary.
Regina Palkovits and Jürgen Klankermayer from the Institute of Technical and Macromolecular Chemistry at RWTH Aachen University won out over 122 other submissions from Germany, Austria and Switzerland with their project "Catalaix: Catalysis for a Circular Economy", as the Werner Siemens Foundation (WSS) announced on Monday.
The project is about reusing the molecular building blocks of recyclable materials. The efficient recycling of plastic mixtures in particular would be a far-reaching, revolutionary innovation, according to the press release. The majority of these products still end up as waste.
Palkovits and Klankermayer want to use new processes to specifically break down these products into reusable molecular building blocks. These building blocks should then be able to be used in a variety of ways, according to the press release. It will therefore not be an isolated material cycle.
WSS was founded in Schaffhausen in 1923 by Charlotte von Buxhoeveden and Marie von Graevenitz. The two women were the daughters of Carl von Siemens, who together with his brother Werner laid the foundations for the Siemens Group.
The original purpose of the foundation was to support members of the Siemens family who had fallen on hard times as a result of the First World War and the revolution in Russia. Since 2003, it has also been promoting innovations in the fields of technology and science.
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