Sustainable polymer materials

The Sustainable polymer materials programme addresses one of the biggest challenges in materials science: how to develop and process polymers in a way that is truly sustainable. This includes making polymers easier to recycle, producing them from renewable resources, and designing materials with extended lifetimes and minimal environmental impact.

The programme focuses on three key areas to enable long-term sustainability in polymer materials:

Sustainable end-of-life solutions: developing advanced recycling technologies to improve the purity and quality of the recyclates and to recover/re-use materials, enhancing the circularity of polymer and composite materials.
Polymers & monomers from renewable resources: investigating bio-based and CO₂-based polymer innovations to replace fossil feedstocks.
Design for sustainability: creating reversible interfaces for recovery of components after service life, mono/less material solutions, alternatives for persistent chemicals like PFAS, extending product lifetimes and reducing environmental impact.

A multi-disciplinary approach is applied, integrating chemistry, physics, and engineering science from the molecular to the macroscopic scale to tackle these challenges.

Key research areas and active projects

The Sustainable polymer materials programme drives research at the intersection of circularity, renewability, and advanced polymer design. Below are key projects shaping the future of sustainable polymers:

Next-generation recycling & circular polymer solutions

Re-Vitri: creating vitrimer-based composite recycling technologies using green supercritical CO₂ processing.
BioSolveCycle: developing a biosolvent-based recycling process to enhance quality and purity of recyclates.
PET-PLA: investigating recycling solutions for mixed PET and PLA waste streams, reducing polymer contamination.
MADPY: a multi-scale analysis and design approach for the pyrolysis of polyolefins, improving recycling efficiency.
RIDE: developing novel organocatalytic methods for the selective deconstruction of plastic waste, enhancing circularity.
Energy-Efficient End-of-Life Solutions: investigating low-energy recycling methods for bio-based polyesters.

Renewable & bio-based polymer innovations

B-CRYSP: investigating bio-based crystal polarization and semi-aromaticity for the next generation of high-performance polymer dielectrics.
EPCO2: engineering polymers from CO₂ using advanced switchable catalysis, turning carbon emissions into high-value materials.

Sustainable polymer design

RECOMP: developing recyclable high-performance composites with reversible interface bonding, enabling easy material recovery.
PER-MANENT: gaining microstructural insights into bioriented polyethylene mono-materials, bridging fundamentals and processing.
CLOMPR: exploring molecular polymer rheology to optimise polymer processing and circularity.
LCA-bioPET: conducting Life Cycle Assessments (LCA) on bio-based PET to quantify its carbon footprint reduction potential.
ODIN: developing optimised matrix and fibre treatments for the recycling of high-performance thermoplastic composites.
SWEEP: creating PFAS-free alternatives for wear-resistant eco-polymers, reducing reliance on persistent chemicals.

Boost your R&D with DPI

By joining the DPI community, you gain access to cutting-edge polymer research, high-impact collaborations, and a strong voice in shaping the future of sustainable materials. Interested in collaborating? Let’s explore the possibilities!