Overview

All members of the SIG are invited to attend the AGM. Nominations to join the committee are welcomed from all members of the group.

Any member who wishes to be elected to the committee should be nominated and seconded from within the group's membership, and should be confirmed to the chair, Malcolm Wilkinson. 

Please note that volunteers for the positions of chair and treasurer must be Chartered Members of IChemE. 

The meeting will be followed by the lecture Rethinking plastic recycling – from what we make to what we throw away by Professor Jason Hallet

Guest Lecture

Addressing the global intractable challenge of plastic pollution in the ocean and the wider environment requires considerable effort along the entire life cycle and value chain of the numerous plastic product groups in modern society from aerospace components to baby toys. Advances in marine biology, oceanography and marine eco-toxicology have helped provide urgency to the issue. At present, only 16% of the plastics collected for recycling are sent to reprocessors, and plastic packaging in circulation only contains a very small percentage of recycled material. More plastic should be recycled into new packaging products, but current reprocessing technologies negatively impact the properties of the original materials. We have promoted a multi-pronged approach to solving this problem, through the use of design engineering, consumer behaviour modification and novel recycling technologies. In this presentation, Professor Hallet will focus on the latter, in particular the use of ionic liquids in recycling of plastics.

Presenter

Professor Jason Hallett, Professor of Sustainable Chemical Technology, Imperial College

Professor Hallet has over 15 years’ experience on the design of novel solvents for the circular economy, focused on waste refining and enabling technologies for industrial biotechnology, including the development of novel chemical processing route for producing bioplastics from lignocellulosic biomass and the stabilisation of enzymes for thermal processing of polymers. He recently founded an SME (Chrysalix Technologies) to develop a commercial waste biorefinery. He is the head of Imperial’s Waste Plastic Recycling Programme and is co-Director of the UKRI-funded Supergen Bioenergy Hub and the Future Vaccine Manufacturing Research Hub.

Time

The AGM will start with refreshments at 17:00 with the Guest Lecture starting at 18:00

Location

Imperial College, Prince Consort Road, London SW7 2BB
Roderic Hill Building - building 7 on map
CPSE Seminar Room, 6th Floor, Room 615