The REDONDO project held its first workshop on September 26, 2024, hosted by our CNRS partner at the Institut Charles Gerhardt (ICGM) at Montpellier. Titled “Polyethylene: An old material with unrivalled properties”, the workshop attracted 80 in-person and online registrations. Experts from academia and industry, representing Europe and the U.S., delivered highly engaging presentations, that contributed to the workshop’s success.
The workshop was opened by Sylvain Caillol who showcased the REDONDO project’s objectives, strategies and the partners’ roles. Following him, Jean Raynaud, from the CP2M research group in Lyon, took the floor, with a talk entitled “Polyolefins & Polyethylenes in particular: from cradle to grave to cradle again”. After an interesting introduction on polyethylene (PE) structure and properties, he focused on the different catalysts used for the synthesis of PEs, notably the various Ziegler-Natta catalysts that are used nowadays, and how transition-metal catalysis has enabled new strategies for the chemical recycling of PEs. Nicolaÿ Renaud, from the ESPCI group, followed with his talk entitled “Crosslinked recyclable polyethylene obtained by reactive processing”, highlighting strategies for PE/PP compatibilization and their potential to improve mechanical recycling, and discussing the crosslinking of PE using triazine based small molecules. The morning session was closed by Ahmad Al Farra, from TotalEnergies France, with his talk Let's turn plastics into green gold! featuring the strategies developed by Total to improve the sustainability of commodity polymers.
After a well-deserved break, Jaime C. Grunlan, from the Texas A&M University (U.S.), presented his team’s research on novel flame-retardant materials, in his talk Bio–Based and Environmentally Benign Polyelectrolyte Coatings for Flame Retardancy and Food Protection. The workshop was concluded by Emmanuel Richaud, from the ENSAM in Paris, who, through his talk Multiscale study of polyolefins oxidation, detailed the basics about oxidative degradation and its consequences on polyolefins, and how ageing can be modelled in order to predict polyolefins lifetime.
The workshop is over, but all presentations are available on the REDONDO’s project new YouTube channel. Do not hesitate to check them out. We would like to extend our thanks to Vincent Ladmiral and Sylvain Caillol for the great organisation, to all the speakers for travelling to Montpellier and sharing their experience and knowledge, and to all the participants for their engagement and questions.
Figure 1: REDONDO’s 1st Workshop Team