Under the high temperatures of mechanical recycling PVC can degrade, creating hydrochloric acid, which can corrode equipment. Recently, a paper at Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain found that certain catalysts can dechlorinate multiple chlorine sites on the same molecule, which sparked the idea for PV-C. We are currently optimising these catalysts to be earth abundant, efficient and commercially viable, so that we can dechlorinate PVC and create poly(ethylene) and salts (ex. NaCl).
Awards 2022