Animal Digestible Food Packaging Initiative

According to a July 13, 2020 news release https:/ /engr.udel.edu/news/2020/07/taking-aim-at-plastic-waste/ the Center for Plastics Innovation (CPI) has been established at the University of Delaware with $11.65 million DoE funding – CPI will bring together researchers from UD, the University of Chicago, University of Massachusetts Amherst, University of Pennsylvania and Oak Ridge National Laboratory to “upcycle” the most difficult plastics to recycle — chemically transforming the waste into fuels, lubricants and other valuable products in an energy-efficient manner – The team will apply different strategies to break down plastics waste — using chemical catalysts and selective enzymes — to “de-polymerize the polymers” and recover pure material – Other catalytic strategies will be explored to transform the recovered materials by changing their electronic properties or by incorporating a “stealth catalyst,” for example, that would activate only on demand – CPI is one of six new Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) established across the U.S. to accelerate scientific breakthroughs #PlasticWaste #FoodPackaging #SingleUsePlastic