For Prof. Ezra Bar-Ziv, there is no garbage—just raw material with value waiting to be unlocked through engineering.
April 2023: Ezra Bar-Ziv is principal investigator (PI) on a 3-year project that received a $549,954 research and development grant from NSF, “Continous Process for Solvent-Targeted Recovery and Precipitation (STRAP) for Plastic Wastes using Green Solvents.”
“Instead of plant biomass as a feedstock at $120 per ton, we decided to use municipal solid waste that the consumer, industry, or households are paying to get rid of. We changed the business model.”
Applications of STRAP: Green Solvents, Municipal Solid Waste, and Disposable Face Masks
From shoes to pen caps to meat wrappers—90 percent of plastics end up in the trash.
Researcher Ezra Bar-Ziv and his team of students have joined a multi-university regional effort to do something about it.
They’re hard at work scaling up a process development unit that will prove the commercial viability of STRAP: solvent targeted recovery and precipitation. In every application, Bar-Ziv keeps economic value at the core to ensure the result has a direct application in the market.
STRAP Method
Developed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison by George Huber, Richard L. Antoine Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, STRAP can restore contaminated plastics, including foodgrade materials, to their original state for reuse.
Partners
CUWP (Chemical Upcycling of Waste Plastics)
Convergen Energy
Select Research Publications
Properties of Torrefied Waste Blends
DOE Researchers Partner To Pelletize Waste Materials
High-purity polypropylene from disposable face masks via solvent-targeted recovery and precipitation
In the News
REMADE conference explores the future of the circular economy
Current Awards
Bar-Ziv has received over $7 million in federal, state, and private funding, including $549,954 from the National Science Foundation; $320,658 from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy; and $2.4 million from the US Department of Energy.
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