Plastics Revolution
Three research strands for the future
Plastic 360 group revolutions come in all shapes and sizes and they impact life in different ways.
Biobased Materials
The hope is that researchers will eventually come up with ‘biobased materials’ such as biobased
plastics made from for example lactic acid, biobased catalysts to replace fossil catalysts and biobased alternatives to toxic additives such as bromine (used as a flame retardant) and calcium- zinc (used as a heat stabiliser).
Plastics Cycle
A closed plastics cycle does not require the input of any new materials except for its own growth. The processes of extraction, separation and recovery are designed in such a way as to generate a base material that is of high enough quality to enable new materials with equivalent characteristics to be produced
Perfomance
Materials that are not just sustainable, but also smart (for example, self-cleaning materials and shape-memory materials), more effective (meaning that they can meet the same performance requirements with less material use or that they can meet higher performance requirements with the same material use.