VALOPLAST project aims to develop bifunctional zeolite catalysts with extra-large pores for plastic wastes upgrading. These solid wastes currently represent a major ecological challenge due to their non-biodegradability. Meanwhile, the demand for hydrogen, a clean energy carrier, continues to grow in response to the energy needs of our society as it gradually moves towards decarbonizing energy sources to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate global warming.
There are numerous methods for plastic wastes upgrading, such as mechanical recycling, pyrolysis, gasification, and other unconventional alternatives like photo and bio-microbial degradation. Among these methods, catalytic pyrolysis using zeolite catalysts is garnering increasing interest and is widely studied in the literature.

Recently, new zeolitic structures with extra-large pores that surpass the conventional porosity size of zeolites have been discovered; examples include ZEO-1 with a channel opening of 1.4 nm and ZMQ-1 with a channel opening reaching up to 2.3 nm. These new structures could serve as more effective and selective catalysts for plastic upgrading.
The main objective of this project involves developing new bifunctional catalysts based on ZEO-1 and ZQM-1 for producing hydrogen and value-added hydrocarbons from plastic wastes.

The catalysts prepared in LCS will be thoroughly characterized using classical and advanced characterization methods available at LCS (XRD, TGA, Nitrogen sorption, solid state NMR, IR, etc…) before being studied in plastic pyrolysis. Polyethylene and polypropylene will be chosen as model molecules before moving to real feedstocks tests.