Plastic Alchemy Logo

Royal Society Summer Exhibition

The University of Surrey will be participating at the Royal Society's Summer Science Exhibition, 1-6 July 2025

Reduce and replace: research

Lego bricks and green plants

As a Royal Society Industry Fellow, Prof Keddie is on a part-time secondment at Pulpex Ltd, which is an SME developing bottles based on wood pulp. To hold liquid, the bottles have an internal plastic coating with a low permeability to act as a barrier. Although the bottles are recyclable in existing paper waste streams, the barrier coatings are not biodegradable.

As a general trend, biodegradable materials have a higher permeability in comparison to petroleum-based plastics. In an Innovate UK project, the team are characterising chitosan, which is a biopolymer derived from shellfish, as a candidate for the barrier coatings. They have proposed a multi-layered structure to offer lower permeabilities to water through the manipulation of the activity differentials that are the driving force for water flux. They are using a combination of experiments and modelling to find the best multi-layer design.

Recover: research

Plastic jar in sunlight

When washing some types of clothing, plastic fibres are released into the wastewater and can ultimately make its way to the oceans. Our research focuses on placing the filters at the final stages of a wastewater treatment plant, before the treated wastewater is discharged into the inland waters and the sea. We have investigated coating the surface of the membrane filters with a special coating to prevent microplastic from clogging them and allowing only plastic-free water to pass through. 

This work looks at recovering plastics from wastewater. Professor Judy Lee and her PhD student, Fatemeh Hamidavi are developing and evaluating specialised filters to prevent plastic fibres and other microplastics from ever reaching the environment.

Recycle: research

Wind turbine

In our work, the most important aspect is to employ the circular economy principles. While carbon fibres provide the highest “added value” component to a composite (such as used in wind turbines), however it they also brings the greatest environmental impact. To reduce its  the environmental impact, it is crucial we maximise the lifetime of the material through second-life applications. This is where our research plays an important role on in establishing the know-how of designing with recyclate. In terms of plastics Utilising thermoplastics, instead of thermosets, can greatly improve increase the recyclability of a composite, if the processing related issues can be overcome.