Impact | Rubber recycling

In the coming weeks the nominees for the Ben Feringa Impact Award 2025 will introduce themselves and their impactful research or project. The winners will be annouced on 13 May. This week: Francesco Picchioni on his innovative way to recycle rubber.

Who are you?

My name is Francesco Picchioni, born and raised in Italy and in The Netherlands for already 25 years. I am a Professor in Chemical Product Engineering at the Faculty of Science and Engineering.

Can you explain what your research is about?

The research is about novel technologies for polymer recycling. In particular, we found a way to recycle rubber from car tires to be reused for the manufacturing of a large variety of products. This is just an example, as I am also involved in  projects for the recycling of PVC (poly(vinyl chloride) and PP (polypropylene) products.

How does society benefit from your research?

Rubbers, PP and PVC are commonly used materials (e.g. PP and PVC account for roughly 42 % of all plastics produced). If we do not recycle, these large volumes of polymer products will end up as waste causing relevant environmental problems. Rubbers are not plastics, but were considered almost impossible to recycle as materials and are widely used especially in tires. Based on this research these materials do not constitute anymore waste but can be considered as raw materials to be used in other products.

What was your personal motivation?

My personal motivation stems from the belief that without recycling our environment will degrade quite fast. I learned that (specifically for the rubber example) being persistent and daring to look for the “limits” (or in other words “pushing the boundaries")  should be the main job of every scientist.

Read more about Franceso Picchioni in Broerstraat 5