The Department of Energy has earmarked $25M in grants for research and development of technology platforms to reprocess waste plastic materials into useful products.
DOE said Monday its advanced manufacturing and bioenergy technologies offices issued the joint funding opportunity announcement, titled “BOTTLE: Bio-Optimized Technologies to Keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment," as part of the Plastics Innovation Challenge.
The BOTTLE FOA contains three topic areas that will focus on developing new biodegradable or recyclable plastics, generating mechanical, chemical or biological methods to upcycle and deconstruct plastic materials and establishing collaborative efforts to address goals of the newly established BOTTLE Consortium.
Interested parties can submit concept papers through April 22 and provide full applications by June 18.
DOE's Los Alamos National Laboratory, National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory seek to collaborate with commercial and academic organizations through the consortium.