Workshop Recycling and Upcycling polymers

A call for abstracts is open until 9 February 2026 for this MaTerRE workshop planned on 14 April 2026 at ENS Ulm.

The workshop “Recycling and Upcycling polymers : What levers can be used to achieve effective material circularity?” aims to bring together researchers, engineers, and industry players to discuss innovative strategies for recycling and upcycling polymers, in a context where the transition to a circular economy for materials is becoming a scientific and societal priority.

Despite recent progress in the sorting, collection, and regeneration of plastics, current processes still struggle to achieve sufficient environmental and economic performance to ensure true circularity. Chemical, enzymatic, and mechanical recycling approaches each have advantages and limitations in terms of efficiency, selectivity, and carbon footprint. At the same time, upcycling, which aims to transform plastic waste into higher value-added materials, opens up new perspectives but also poses challenges in terms of technical feasibility, chemical compatibility, and the sustainability of the products obtained.

The objective of this workshop is to promote multidisciplinary dialogue between chemists, process specialists, LCA experts, and material flow analysis experts in order to identify current barriers and technological, economic, and regulatory levers that can be used to strengthen the circularity of polymers.

We therefore wish to collectively explore avenues for the design, modification, and reuse of polymer materials that will enable the concepts of recyclability and recovery to be fully integrated into the sustainable development strategies for the materials of the future.

Sylvain Caillol, Institut Charles Gehrardt Montpellier

Sylvain Caillol is Research Director at CNRS. He headed the Polymer Research Department in the Rhodia Research Center of Aubervilliers . In 2007 he joined the CNRS at the Institute Charles Gerhardt, University of Montpellier where he started a new research topic dedicated to Green Chemistry and Biobased Polymers. He is co-author of more than 200 articles, patents and book chapters. He won the Green Materials Prize in 2018 and 2020 and was nominated Pioneering Investigator by the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2019. He is Editor-in-Chief of Green Materials (ICE).

Coralie Jehanno, CSO and co-founder of Polykey Polymers S.L

Polykey Polymers S.L. is a company that arose in 2020 with the objective of developing technologies and products for a more sustainable polymer industry.