The world’s complex relationship with plastics is rooted in a Catch-22 of sorts. The molecular properties that give plastic its amazing elasticity, strength and versability also make it extremely difficult to break down with mechanical recycling.

Still an emerging technology, chemical recycling changes the molecular building blocks of plastics, transforming plastic waste into chemicals that create higher use products, diverting waste from carbon-emitting landfills and incinerators.

Chemists Ryan Hackler and Robert Kennedy have developed a revolutionary chemical recycling technology, catalytic hydrogenolysis, that leverages platinum and hydrogen to transform petroleum-based, single-use polyolefins into higher-value products like waxes, lubricants, home goods and cosmetics.

Hackler and Kennedy met in 2014 while pursuing doctoral degrees in chemistry at Northwestern University. The pair developed the technology as postdoctoral researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory. They co-founded the Chicago-based startup Aeternal Upcycling in 2022 to advance the technology.

“Only about 5% of plastic is recycled today, primarily because mechanical recycling only works with very clean plastic waste,” said Kennedy, who has more than a decade of experience developing chemistry technologies for polymer waste upcycling and biofuels. “Aeternal Upcycling is part of a wave of advanced recycling technologies that can use plastic waste as a resource and turn it back into useful carbon feedstocks.”

As part of a circular economy, the patented technology has the potential to divert millions of tons of plastic waste from landfills and incinerators.

As members of Cohort 6 of Argonne’s Chain Reaction Innovations (CRI) program, Hackler and Kennedy are working with Argonne scientists to take their innovation from the lab to the commercial marketplace.

CRI is Argonne’s two-year entrepreneurship program that embeds innovators in the Lab to help them develop their early-stage technologies. Hackler and Kennedy are working in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering Division with senior chemist Max Delferro, group leader of the Catalysis Science Program, to advance the technology.

How it Works

Catalytic hydrogenolysis begins by depositing platinum onto the surface of very small cubes to create the catalyst. Plastic is shredded and mixed with hydrogen gas and the catalyst is placed into a reactor.  The catalyst then begins cutting the long polymer chains in polyethylene into short, uniform chains of molecules that are easier to repurpose into new products.

This technology improves on pyrolysis, the standard for chemical recycling, by operating at a much lower temperature, improving its energy efficiency. Hydrogenolysis also does not require energy-intensive separations.

Argonne data shows that the hydrogenolysis technology produces wax and oil products with reduced emissions of nearly 75% compared to the standard waxes and lubricants.

Scaling up the technology

At Argonne, Delferro is working with Hackler and Kennedy to demonstrate the technology’s effectiveness for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and its ability to handle multiple types of plastic on a larger scale.

The innovators are using Argonne instruments including gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) to characterize the molecular details of their plastic-derived chemicals. Hackler and Kennedy are using Argonne’s numerous chemical reactors to test variables to better understand the process before moving into the scale-up phase.

During CRI, Hackler and Kennedy developed a prototype of the technology and are in the process of determining whether it can be scaled up to the kilogram scale necessary for commercialization. They will then focus on producing kilogram-scale wax prototype products.

“If we can go from one gram to one kilogram, it’s much more likely that we can go from one kilogram to one ton,” Kennedy said.

Through CRI, the innovators have made major strides developing their business, said Hackler, a chemist with 10 years of research experience across fields including aerospace engineering, surface science, catalysis and polymer science. “The funding has allowed us to hit the ground running in scaling up our technology, while giving us access to state-of-the art equipment.”