Prof. Haritz Sardon,  University of the Basque Country, Spain

From Selective Chemical Recycling of Plastics to the preparation of circular by design plastics

Despite the growing volume of plastic waste, plastic recycling remains limited, hindered by a complex interplay of economic, societal and logistical challenges. Technical barriers persist, particularly in scaling laboratory innovations to industrially viable processes. Moreover, the research focus on idealized, single-polymer wastes overlooks the complexity of real-world plastic waste streams, which are typically heterogeneous and contaminated.

The development of strategies for the selective recycling of materials from complex waste streams is crucial to advancing a circular plastics economy. In this  lecture, we sill show our efforts to treat complex plastic waste and assess recycling strategies that show potential for the selective recycling of plastic waste. We will also show how we can design plastics with intrinsic circularity and function. 

BIO
Dr. Haritz Sardon Muguruza is an Associate Professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) and leader of the Sustainable Catalysis and Polymers Group at BERC-POLYMAT, which comprises approximately 20 researchers. He earned his undergraduate degree (2006) and his Master’s (2008) from UPV/EHU, before obtaining his PhD with international honors in 2011 under the supervision of Professors M. J. Fernández-Berridi and L. Irusta. Following a brief period in the private sector at Histocell (Bilbao, 1.5 years), Dr. Sardon moved to IBM Research (California) for a two-year postdoctoral stay under the supervision of Dr. J. L. Hedrick, where he specialized in the use of organocatalysis in polymerization systems. After completing his postdoctoral training, he returned to Spain with a "Juan de la Cierva" fellowship to work at POLYMAT, eventually joining UPV/EHU as an Assistant Professor in 2018.