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IAEA working with experts to develop ionizing radiation techniques for recycling plastics
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is working with experts from all over the world to research and develop ionizing radiation techniques to affordably reprocess and recycle plastics.
These techniques involve using electron beam accelerators to irradiate post-consumer plastics to recycle them and to more easily reform them into other products.
This drive is meant to change that fate and protect marine life and the environment from plastic pollution.
The technique is promising because it is not entirely new and has a long and successful story. Irradiated polymers are found all around, from the rubber tyres on a car to hot water pipes and food packaging.
“If we can use this technology in industrial applications to gain new features in plastics, there is nothing stopping us also using irradiation to reform and restructure plastic to improve its recyclability and reduce the amount of plastic disposed,” said Celina Horak, Head of the Radioisotope Products and Radiation Technology Section at the IAEA.
Plastics are made up of different types of polymers — a substance made of long chains or networks of repeating groups of atoms called monomers. The irradiation of polymers produces different effects on the polymers that are beneficial for recycling, reducing and reusing plastic waste.
A new IAEA coordinated research project to develop the use of ionizing radiation in recycling polymer waste is spearheading research in this area.
“Irradiating materials is no longer just a manufacturing tool, but also a recycling tool, so the ionizing radiation techniques used to modify polymers are relevant for plastic waste processing,” said Bin Jeremiah Barba, Science Research Specialist at the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute. Her institute is just 1 of 18 countries, which are collaborating to consider how radiation processes such as cross-linking, chain scission, grafting and other surface modification can help countries to develop more affordable and accessible recycling methodologies.
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