Project Members
Research Director
Toward social implementation, this project aims to develop new catalysts for degradation of resins, that enable decomposition of plastics to molecular levels to be used as useful raw materials. Catalyst development for creation of polyolefin resins bearing easily decomposable groups is also targeted. The project is composed of five groups, which are organically linked to each other in promotion of research to develop a plastic reuse process and build a new academic field related to resin degradation.
Project Headquarters
- Research Manager
Eiichi Araki Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo - Administrative Staff
Ritsuko Inoue Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
Research groups
Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo Group
Subject1: Development of catalysts for the hydrogenation of hardly degradable resins to chemically reusable feedstock is investigated. For the purpose, new catalysts to cleave carbon-oxygen, carbon-chlorine, and carbon-carbon bonds will be developed by the combination of homogeneous and heterogeneous catalyst systems with a concept of “neighboring-group effect”.
Researcher
- Kyoko Nozaki, Professor
- Jin Xiongjie, Associate Professor
- Rin Seki, Assistant professor
- Doctoral course students
- Master course students
- Undergraduate students
Subject2: In order to fabricate new polyolefins bearing easily degradable functional groups yet bearing similar physical properties to original polyolefins, new catalysts are developed for their synthesis and physical properties of the resulting polymers are investigation.
Researcher
- Kyoko Nozaki, Professor
- Ma Zhuang, Project Researcher
- Yuan Haobo, Project Researcher
- Liu Chenfei, Project Researcher
- Doctoral course students
- Master course students
- Undergraduate students
Researcher（AIST Group）
- Shinji Tanaka (田中慎二), Group Leader
- Sayo Osanai, Research Assistant
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, Interdisciplinary Research Center for Catalytic Chemistry Group
Subject: Development of hydrolysis for hardly degradable resins
To chemically recycle hardly degradable resins such as engineering plastics by hydrolysis, reactions to cleave carbon-oxygen, carbon-chlorine, and carbon-carbon bonds will be realized by fusing new homogeneous catalysts, which are developed with a focus on adjacent group contribution and a heterogeneous catalyst.
Researcher
- Kazuhiko Sato, Asistant Director General
- Masaru Yoshida, Director, Research Institute
- Akira Yada, Group Leader
- Shinji Tanaka (田中慎二), Group Leader（※easily degradable resins）
- Shinji Tanaka (田中真司), Senior Researcher (※Polymer structure evaluation)
- Hayato Ishikawa, Research Assistant
- Tomoko Sugita, Research Assistant（※Polymer structure evaluation）
- Sayo Osanai, Research Assistant（※easily degradable resins）
- Takako Kato, Research Assistant
Hosei University Group
Subject: Reaction field design
With an eye on the development of treatment of actual plastic waste containing organic halides, we aim to design a reaction field mainly for hydrothermal reactions, and further apply it to hardly degradable resins.
Researcher
- Satomi Hosokawa, Researcher
- Douglas Hungwe, Researcher
Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo Group
Subject: Polymer structure evaluation
We will elucidate the mechanism of resin decomposition and catalytic reaction through structural analysis by X-ray diffraction/scattering (IIS, U-Tokyo) and DNP (Dynamic Nuclear Polarization) -NMR analysis (AIST) etc., and observation of crystallization process by differential scanning calorimetry etc (IIS, U-Tokyo).
Researcher(IIS, U-Tokyo Group)
- Naoko Yoshie, Professor
- Roopsung Nontarin, Project Researcher
Researcher(AIST Group)
- Shinji Tanaka (田中真司), Senior Researcher
- Tomoko Sugita, Research Assistant
Gunma University Group
Subject: Evaluation of biodegradability
We evaluate the biodegradability of polyolefins bearing easily degradable functional groups. The residue is analyzed by mass spectrometry, and so on. We also try to elucidate microbiome involved in the biodegradation of materials using meta-omics analysis.
Researcher
- Ken-ichi Kasuya, Professor
- Soulenthone Phouvilay, Assistant Professor
- Mikiko Karube, Research Assistant
- Master course students
- Undergraduate student
