Dr. Toraman had the pleasure of attending the Remade Conference in Washington D.C., where the Remade team (Dr. Konstantinos Alexopoulos, Farhad Zaker Hosseiny, Md Nurus Sakib, Dr. Rui Shi) presented the project funded by the Remade Institute on Chemical Recycling of Mixed Plastics. The presentation, led by Farhad Zaker, one of the PhD students at Penn State, delved into the intricacies of technoeconomic analysis for catalytic pyrolysis of Polypropylene (PP).

Dr. Toraman enjoyed the interaction with friends and colleagues while learning more about the collection and sorting of plastics, including its current state and the desired future on AI-driven sorting systems, which can minimize the dependence on consumer choice and behavior when it comes to waste separation. The keynote lectures and panel discussions were thought-provoking, offering new perspectives on the current state of plastic recycling and envisioning a more sustainable future.

Publication Alert! Very delighted to share the most recent publication from a project funded by the Remade Institute that developed a web-based data storage and analysis hub for chemical recycling of mixed plastics. One of the aspects of this database is data mining.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is an established task with the objective of identifying the text present in an image. While many off-the-shelf OCR models exist, they are often trained for either scientific (e.g., formulae) or generic printed English text. Extracting text from chemistry publications requires an OCR model that is capable in both realms. Nougat, a recent tool, exhibits strong ability to parse academic documents, but is unable to parse tables in PubMed articles, which comprises a significant part of the academic community and is the focus of this work. To mitigate this gap, we present the Printed English and Chemical Equations (PEaCE) dataset, containing both synthetic and real-world records, and evaluate the efficacy of transformer-based OCR models when trained on this resource.

Congratulations to the whole team: Nan Zhang, Connor Heaton, Sean Okonsky, Prasenjit Mitra, Hilal Ezgi Toraman.

Interdisciplinary Talk by Prof. Toraman: Waste to Resource: Sustainable Plastic Management for a Circular Global Economy

Professor Toraman recently delivered an insightful interdisciplinary talk titled “Waste to Resource: Sustainable Plastic Management for a Circular Global Economy” at The Millennium Café.

The talk outlined the issue of plastic waste management, highlighting that approximately 60% of all plastics ever produced currently reside in waste sites, resulting in an annual economic loss estimated at $80-120 billion USD. Moreover, plastic production, constituting 6% of global oil consumption, is projected to surge to 20% by 2050.

Professor Toraman emphasized the importance of addressing plastic waste management challenges, particularly considering the unique conditions in landfills and the natural environment which is subjected to various environmental factors, such as high salinity, fluctuating temperatures, and microbial degradation, leading to the generation of microplastics. Drawing from the expertise of Dr Toraman’s laboratory in catalysis and reaction engineering, as well as leveraging advanced analytical techniques, including two-dimensional gas chromatography and artificial intelligence, Professor Toraman’s research endeavours to delve into the fundamental chemistry underlying mixed plastic recycling technologies.

Congratulations to Dr. Toraman for being the recipient of Wilson Faculty Fellowship. Many thanks for this recognition Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences!

Dr. Toraman gave invited talks on 1) systematic approach to develop mechanistic insights into primary decomposition of polymers (Symposium on Chemical Deconstruction and Upcycling of Polymer Waste, 2) a TED-talk style narrative on her life and research (C&EN Talented 12 Symposium) and 3) an open source web-based data platform to support sustainable development of plastic recycling (Symposium on Big Data in Polymer Chemistry).

Together with Susannah Scott, and Konstantinos Alexopoulos, Dr. Toraman hosted a symposium at the ACS National Meeting in San Francisco. The symposium focused on “Chemical Deconstruction and Upcycling of Polymer Waste”

· Dr. Toraman presented the work titled, “Insights into co-pyrolysis of polymer mixtures through experiments, kinetic modeling and machine learning” in the poster session at the 27th International Symposium for Chemical Reaction Engineering, Québec City, Québec, Canada on June 11-14, 2023.

· Barbara presented the work titled “Investigation of primary decomposition of polypropylene using a Py-GC×GC-FID/TOF-MS system” during the poster sesion at the 27th International Symposium for Chemical Reaction Engineering, Québec City, Québec, Canada on June 11-14, 2023.

· Congratulations to both Barbara and Dr. Toraman for receiving the travel grant to attend the 27th International Symposium for Chemical Reaction Engineering, Québec City, Québec, Canada

· Congratulations to Dr. Toraman for being recognized in Chemical & Engineering News’ esteemed list of Talented 12 in 2023. Toraman was selected for her research in technologies that turn waste into fuels, chemicals and other products. She will be attending several events at the ACS Fall 2023 meeting highlighting the T12—including the symposium, the Talented 12 and Centennial reception, and the Proud to be a Chemists interviews with the T12.  She will give a TED-style talk on her life and research as part of the Talented 12 Symposium. See below the links from various media outlets:

LINK HERE

LINK HERE

· Sean presented the work titled “Utilization of a micro-pyrolysis flor-modulated GCxGC/TOFMS-FID system for studying the catalytic pyrolysis of mixed plastic waste” at the 20th International GCxGC symposium in Canmore, Canada. 

· Barbara presented the worked titled “Characterization of polypropylene based pyrolysis oils: A comparison between one-dimensional gas chromatography and two-dimensional gas chromatography” at the 20th International GCxGC symposium in Canmore, Canada. 

· Congratulations to Barbara for winning 3rd place in the JEOL-Sacks oral presentation award at the 20th International GCxGC symposium. 

· Sean presented the work titled “Characterization of Zeolite Catalysts Used for the Catalytic Pyrolysis of Plastic Waste” during the poster session at the 2023 Pittsburgh Cleveland Catalysis Society Symposium. 

· Congratulations to Barbara for winning the PCCS-Lubrizol award with the work titled “Experimental approach in the investigation of primary decomposition of polypropylene using a Py-GCxGC-FID/TOF-MS system and data science” at the 2023 Pittsburgh Cleveland Catalysis Society Symposium. 

· Sean presented the work titled “Catalytic co-pyrolysis of LDPE and PET with HZSM-5, H-beta, and HY: experiments and kinetic modelling” at the Penn State College of Engineering Research Symposium (CERS).  

· Congratulations to Sean for winning 2nd place in his oral presentation in the material and characterization category at the Penn State College of Engineering Research Symposium (CERS). 

· Barbara delivered her first talk during a conference on “Investigation of primary decomposition of polypropylene using a Py-GCxGC-FID/TOF-MS system”,  Remade Circular Economy Tech Summit and Conference, March 21, 2023.

· Dr. Toraman represented the REMADE project on “Chemical Recycling of Mixed PET/Polyolefin Streams Through Sequential Pyrolysis and Catalytic Upgrading during Remade Circular Economy Tech Summit and Conference, March 20, 2023.

· Congratulations to Barbara for receiving a travel grant to attend the Remade Circular Economy Tech Summit and Conference.

Dr. Toraman gave a webinar on Comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) method development for detailed characterization of pyrolysis oils. It was part of the A Celebration of Women In Science 2023 organized by SepSolve Analytical.

LINK HERE