Defence Justin Bulten: "Finding a Future for Postconsumer Plastics: An Exploration of Advanced Polypropylene Modification Reactions"
Promotors: 1st promotor: Prof Francesco Picchioni, 2nd promotor: Prof Erik Heeres
Abstract: We made an attempt to chip away at society’s waste problem, but what to do when our products are out of service? For the common plastic polypropylene, reassignment as part of a roofing material seemed a most interesting solution. To accomplish this, the plastic needs to be made less stiff, or the roof will be too fragile. Unfortunately, the plastic’s nature tends to steer us in a different direction. Through the aid of a second material, we found a way to steer the plastic’s properties back on track, but not sufficiently so. However, as we later found out, the first path we wanted to take turned out to be a dead-end anyway. Therefore, we investigated a second pathway that proved even more challenging, and which did even less to make the plastic less stiff than the first pathway. At this point, we shifted our perspective. The plastic would not be the sole component in the roofing material, but would be mixed in with another material, bitumen. Instead of keeping the focus solely on the plastic, we started testing how to make the mixture of these materials less stiff. Though unable to prepare a mixture that was flexible enough, we did find another way to steer the properties. Combining all pathways of this exploration, one might be able to find the sweet-spot to ensure the correct properties of the roofing material. That would go a long way to address our waste problem for one of the most common plastics in use.