Dr Margaret Brennan Fournet
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Dr Margaret Brennan Fournet, Assistant Director PRISM Research Institute, Manager Centre for Polymer Sustainability (CPS), TUS.
Dr Margaret Brennan Fournet is the Assistant Director of the PRISM Research Institute and Manager of the Centre for Polymer Sustainability (CPS) at TUS. Her primary research aim is the creation of low carbon plastics for the circular economy of the future. Leading a number of EU and national transformative projects, Margaret’s talented cross-sectorial team at the CPS are dedicated to fast-tracking sustainable technologies and equipping companies to achieve circularity for their products and processes. She has lectured extensively both nationally and internationally. Margaret received a B.Sc. in Experimental Physics at University College Dublin in 1997, and a Ph.D. from the School of Physics Trinity College Dublin in 2002. Today Margaret is dedicated to delivering solutions at the forefront of emerging and disruptive sustainable polymer and plastics technologies which preserve natural resources and reduce polluting emissions, while creating jobs and building market opportunities.
Margaret is currently involved in two projects funded by the EU Framework Programmes for RTD. BioICEP (Bio-Innovation of a Circular Economy), is a €7M flagship EU-China Horizon 2020 project, which is now demonstrating radically new technologies for sustainable plastics recycling, including those that are not recycled/recyclable today. Launched on Oct 25th this year, the EcoPlastiC project is funded by the highly competitive European Innovation Council under Horizon Europe, which targets high risk/high gain visionary innovation. EcoPlastiC technologies are designed to facilitate the full decoupling of plastic consumption from the current extraction of fossil fuels and instead enables entry into permanent regenerative loops.
The Horizon mentoring programme is a excellent opportunity to empower the next generation of visionary researchers to succeed in realising their innovations to shape our future and I am privileged to contribute to this mission.
BioICEP Delivering Radically New Sustainable Plastic Technologies
BioICEP (Bio-Innovation of a Circular Economy), is a €7M flagship EU-China Horizon 2020 project, which is now demonstrating radically new technologies for sustainable plastics recycling, including those that are not recycled/recyclable today. https://www.bioicep.eu/ . Bringing together academic and industrial experts from nine countries, BioICEP spans Western to Eastern Europe and on to China. New sustainably technologies to unmake and then remake plastics in a range of green loops and cycles are under development. In essence, fossil fuel-based mixed plastic waste is taken in at one end, undergoes a series of novel treatments and then original polymers or new eco-polymers are remade at the other end. BioICEP provides routes to mixed plastics circularity at levels far in excess of those currently achievable and mitigates against pollution generation and fossil fuel extraction
PerPETual Indefinite Recycling for PET Plastic Technologies
PerPETual as the name suggests, is dedicated to the everyday polymer, PET, used in drinks bottles, food packaging and textiles. The €2.9M PerPETual project, funded by Enterprise Ireland’s Disruptive technologies Innovation Fund, can circularise polyester plastics continuously and positively impact the low carbon and sustainability targets in Ireland’s Climate Action Plan. Coordinated by Dr. Fournet the science developed in BioICEP has led to the creation of PerPETual innovation. Partnering up with Irish companies, Novelplast and Avoncourt and University College Cork, PerPETual technologies enable continuous recycling for all grades of PET, spanning pristine bottle grades to low grade PET-based pots tubs and trays. Indefinite PET monomer generation and repolymerisation as “new” virgin PET, equivalent to fossil fuel extracted PET, is delivered in this new industrially scalable process.
New €3M EU project on Creating Low Carbon EcoPlastic
Launched on Oct 25th, this year, the EcoPlastiC project is funded by the highly competitive European Innovation Council, which targets high risk/high gain visionary innovation. EcoPlastiC technologies are designed to facilitate the full decoupling of plastic consumption from the current extraction of fossil fuels and instead enables entry into permanent regenerative loops. EcoPlastic is dedicated on validating novel, highly efficient systems for the depolymerisation of mixed recalcitrant plastics and regeneration as bioplastics. These eco-plastics are fully sustainable and can have equivalent properties to virgin petroleum plastics.
The EcoPlastiC team works closely with consumers, industry and policy makers on an international basis to foster and implement opportunities creating new prospects for industrial circularity. The new low carbon Eco plastics will decrease energy consumption, avoid the release of microplastics into the oceans and will help Ireland and the EU meet their sustainability target
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