Completed Materials & Manufacturing Chemistry

Innovative Coatings and Adhesives for Recycling (I-CARE)

Funder EPSRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation University of Sheffield
Funding £1.6M
Period Sept 2018 — Jul 2025

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

Most of the plastics and polymers used in UK manufacturing are thrown away after a single use, with 80% of all materials in production ending up as waste. This Fellowship aims to design a new class of "smart" polymers that combine high performance during use with the ability to be easily recycled afterwards. The core problem is that current high-performance materials are often designed without recycling in mind, creating a trade-off between durability and reusability. The researcher will work with academic and industrial partners to understand how the molecular structure of these new polymers determines their physical properties and their compatibility with other materials. If successful, this work could fundamentally change how products are made in the UK, allowing manufacturers to use materials that perform well in their intended application but can then be broken down and remanufactured into new goods. This would directly reduce the volume of waste sent to landfill and help shift the manufacturing sector toward a circular economy, where materials stay in use rather than becoming waste.

View original technical description
Polymers are all around us and although they are an integral part to the development of the global economy, many materials are only used once. Waste production in the UK is a significant issue with 80% of materials used in manufacturing products ending up as waste, landfill approaching capacity and a 40% increase in consumer waste projected between 2016 and 2020. Against a backdrop of sustainability and the need to reduce environmental impacts, recycling, re-use and remanufacture are becoming ever more important. This Fellowship will develop smart polymers that provide high performance and also enable recycling, which will be a unique approach in the UK to a circular economy. The goal of the programme is to work with academic and industrial partners to develop a key body of knowledge via high quality underpinning science and correlating the molecular architecture of the new materials with their basic physical properties and the application performance important to the end use, in addition to designing the relative compatibility between polymers to optimise their form and ultimate properties.

View the original record at the funder ↗

Researchers

Andrew Slark (Principal Investigator)

Related Research

Grants with similar aims, by meaning.

Switchable Polymer Manufacturing Delivering Sustainable Products
High Selectivity and Activity Catalysts to Deliver Sustainable Polymers
A Triad for Upcycling Plastic Waste: Catalysis, Copolymers and Compatibilizers
Integrated Catalytic Recycling of Plastic Residues Into Added-Value Chemicals
SuperPolyWash - Supercritical CO2 washing and decontamination of post-consumer plastic film waste

Original classification

Fellowship

Plain English summaries and category classifications on this site are generated by AI and may not perfectly reflect the original research.