The Circular Economy, among the priorities of the European Commission to support sustainable growth and job creation, is defined as an economy in which the value of products, materials and resources is maintained for as long as possible and the production of waste is reduced to minimum. The Circular economy would, therefore, reduce environmental impacts while contributing to economic growth: once a product finished its function, its constituent materials are re-introduced into the economic cycle, in order to reuse them within the production cycle, generating additional value. Waste becomes as a useful resource, no more a problem to manage and dispose.

According to the principles of Circular Economy, one of the main goal of the Polymers for a sustainable environment research line is the identification of sensible routes to re-use/inertize post-consumer plastics, coming from different sources, in other applications. The streams of post-consumer plastics and waste polymeric materials are currently only partially exploited, mainly for the production of energy, which implies a waste of non-renewable natural resources, with possible environmental damages. On the other hand, pollution due to plastics waste dispersed on the ground or in the sea is a serious threat to the environment. The impact of these waste polymeric materials on the environment (ground, marine) is, therefore, being studied by MaTech-Ccult group, with the identification of the main polymeric families left in the environment. An example of recovery, valorization and inertization of post-consumer plastic waste is represented by their use/re-use in other applications, to produce new materials and to manufacture new products. 

Innovative solutions that can take advantages from the polymers features can even reduce the environmental impact caused by a massive exploitation of non-renewable resources, such as those used to ensure indoor comfort of the buildings. In a worldwide society growingly concerned about the increase of global energy consumption, the building sector is one of the most indicted: it accounts for more than 30% of total energy consumption and produces around 30% of total CO2 emissions. Since much of the energy consumption in buildings is used for the heating and cooling, the development of building materials able to improve the efficiency in energy utilization is gaining increasing interest. The integration of Phase Change Materials (PCMs) into buildings, able to absorb and release energy from/in the environment during the modifications in its physical state as a consequence of changes in external temperature, can reduce the temperature variations in buildings: this can lead to human comfort improvements and energy consumption reductions. The efforts of MaTech-Ccult groups are, then, focalized on the development of sustainable PCMs, based on low toxic/low flammable polymers adsorbed in waste natural materials, to be incorporated in different binders to produce PCM-modified mortars able to improve the building energy efficiency, adaptable to any outdoor climatic condition.

Still in compliance with the Circular Economy models, there is also the production of “bio-based” polymers based on renewable/waste resources.

Related publications (last 5 years, only open access are listed):

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4360/13/11/1870?type=check_update&version=1 
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/6/3186 
https://www.mdpi.com/2504-3900/69/1/5 
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/13/9/2055 
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/12/21/3502 
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/12/8/1260 
https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201930302001
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-78175-4_23 
 

Morphological analysis performed at Scanning Electric Microscope (SEM) on mortars containing new sustainable polymer-based PCMs.