News

Reimagining the Value of Single Use Plastics

Recent publication from the Scott Group demonstrates improvement in their innovative process that turns polyolefins into high-value alkylaromatics. 

In the original process of turning polyethylene into long chain alkylaromatics, the platinum on alumina catalyst was slow and the yield of products low. In the improved process, the speed and selectivity of the reaction is enhanced by increasing the acidity of the alumina via the addition of chlorine or fluorine. 

Dr. Scott Covered in UCSB's Engineering Magazine

Dr. Susannah Scott's work with plastics and pollution is highlighted in Convergence, a UCSB Engineering Department Magazine.

Last October, an article in SCIENCE by UC Santa Barbara researchers Susannah Scott and Mahdi Abu- Omar described a one-pot, low-temperature catalytic method that upcycles polyethylene into high-value alkylaromatic molecules. Polyethylene represents about a third of all plastics, which have a global value of about $200 billion annually.
 

The Scott Group Publishes New Findings in Science

Researchers develop an efficient, low-energy method for upcycling plastic waste into valuable molecules, creating a second life for waste plastics.

UCSB researchers have discovered a new catalytic route to transform waste plastic to valuable products via tandem hydrogenolysis/aromatization. Compared with conventional methods that require high temperatures (between 500 and 1000°C) to break down the polymer chains into smaller hydrocarbon molecules, the newly developed method converts polyethylene under relatively mild conditions (ca.

NAS Science Session: New Approaches to Solving the Plastics Dilemma (Featuring: Susannah Scott)

NAS 157th Annual Meeting: ONLINE PUBLIC PROGRAM and WATCH THE RECORDING

Catalytic Hydrogenolysis by Atomically Dispersed Iron Sites Embedded in Chemically and Redox Non-innocent N-Doped Carbon

For more details and to read the paper, https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/jacs.4c00741

Catalytic Reduction of CO2 to CO by a Single-Site Heterobimetallic Iron–Potassium Complex Supported on Alumina

Find more details here!

Quantitative Analyses of Products and Rates in Polyethylene Depolymerization and Upcycling

Recent publication from members in our group detail techniques for product recovery of polyethylene depolymerization, characterization and quantification of hydrocarbon products in complex mixtures, quantitative analysis of reaction selectivity for alkanes versus aromatics, and enumeration of depolymerization rates using average rates of C–C bond scission. Read the publication here. 

Recent publication from the Scott Group demonstrates improvement in their innovative process that turns polyolefins into high-value alkylaromatics

In the original process of turning polyethylene into long chain alkylaromatics, the platinum on alumina catalyst was slow and the yield of products low. In the improved process, the speed and selectivity of the reaction is enhanced by increasing the acidity of the alumina via the addition of chlorine or fluorine.