In June, 16 tenth graders from Cantor Gymnasium Halle had the opportunity to learn more about plastic recycling and, above all, try it out for themselves. As part of the student project week organized by the CTC in collaboration with Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, the focus was on experiments in the circular economy of plastics.

The first two days were all about process engineering aspects of mechanical recycling, during which the students re-injected and molded plastic waste (polyethylene terephthalate). Next, the students cut up PET bottles they had brought with them (see picture 2) and converted them into BHET (bis(hydroxyethyl)terephthalate) using glycol and zinc acetate (see pictures 3 and 4). Finally, the young people polymerized the isolated material back into PET discs. Our two colleagues, Toni Grell and Markus Lange from the Academy for Chemical Transformation (ACT), supervised the experiments and enjoyed swapping their laptops for lab coats.

Chemical recycling was also the topic of the presentation given by our colleague and junior research group leader, Manuel Häußler. He provided inspiring insights into the topic and presented new polymer approaches being researched at the CTC and his start-up, aevoloop GmbH (picture 5).
The circular economy can only work long term if based on sustainable thinking. A short workshop concluded the event by teaching the basics of life cycle analysis, an important aspect of the circular economy. Pooja Dwivedi, who works on social, economic, and ecological metrics at the CTC, showed students how processes influence nature, people, and the environment (picture 6).

The student project week was opened by Dr. Eileen Bette, Prof. Julia Beate Langer, Prof. Markus Krabbes from Merseburg University of Applied Sciences, Dr. Toni Grell, and Markus Lange from the Academy for Chemical Transformation (ACT) at the CTC.

Photos: Image 1: Timo Stam-Creutz on behalf of the INW department; other images: Hannah Loewenau