2ndUpChance: A second chance for Upcycling of Microplastics

Microplastics (MPs) are of growing concern to the public because of their potential toxicity and bioaccumulation in living organisms.

Given that a large share of MPs pollution is wear-related, sorting and recycling alone are notsufficient to reduce the spillage of MPs into the environment, and from there up the food web.

To address the global environmental and health hazards associated with plastic waste pollution, it is necessary to prevent the discharge of MPs into the aquatic environment.

To achieve this goal, 2nd UpChance will exploit the participants’ expertise in Raman spectroscopy, carbon isotope labelling, bioelectrochemical systems, biodegradation of recalcitrant feedstocks, and microbial oleogenesis to develop an integrated process that harnesses the chemical energy held in plastic polymers, thus upcycling MPs to value-added compounds. 2nd UpChance will enable and optimize the upcycling process by i) accurately monitoring the transfer of carbon from MPs to value-added products through microbial metabolism, ii) developing cost-effective MPs oxidation methods to facilitate the biodegradation of MP-rich streams, and iii) integrating microbial processes capable of converting the carbon in MPs to industrially valuable polyunsaturated fatty acids.

The proposed approach represents a synergistic effort to finally incorporate MPs into a circular economy, transforming a waste-pollution  problem into a value-added product.