Szymon Sobek PhD, Eng. will be involved in plastic recycling as an internship from an NCN grant
Szymon Sobek PhD, Eng. from the Faculty of Energy and Environmental Engineering, will focus on plastic recycling during his three-month research internship in Rome. The internship will take place as part of the MINIATURA grant from the National Science Centre (NCN).
The full name of the project is “Environmental Life Cycle Assessment of the application of hydrothermal and solvolysis processes as methods for chemical and material recycling of plastic waste”.
The aim of the project is a 3-month research internship in the team of Prof Lidia Lombardi at Niccolò Cusano University in Rome. They will spend time working on the environmental Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of recycled (material and chemical) plastic waste products.
As doctor Sobek explained, LCA analysis is a technique aimed at assessing potential environmental risks with the focus not only on evaluating the end result of a given technological process but also on estimating and assessing the environmental consequences of the entire process.
- We intend to combine the experience of our team in hydrothermal waste conversion and plastics solvolysis with the expertise of Prof. Lombardi's team in LCA analysis in order to first determine the environmental impact of the material recovery methods used, e.g. from wind turbines, and then look for solutions to reduce the harmful impacts, such as high energy intensity of the process, consumption of non-renewable resources or greenhouse gas emissions. By breaking down the recycling process into its constituent phases: from the extraction of waste, through its processing with the extraction of all the necessary resources, e.g. energy and materials, to the final product - free glass fibres, resins or volatile fatty acids - we can isolate and qualitatively identify the sources of emissions or excessive consumption of resources to minimise them", said doctor Szymon Sobek.
