SIDDHESH SHIRISH BORKAR
Texas A&M University, PhD Chemical Engineering
EREF Scholar 2025
Assessing Scalability of Waste Plastic Upcycling through the Mechanistic Understanding of Catalytic Conversions
Creating a circular carbon economy is key to reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, and repurposing post-consumer plastic waste back into the value chain can play a significant role. At “end-of-life”, plastics are largely incinerated, landfilled, or worse, leak into the environment, causing significant greenhouse gas emissions and threats to the ecosystems. As such, it is critical to maximize our efforts to upcycle end-of-life plastics, treating them as a useful carbon source. Siddhesh’s PhD research focuses on catalytically upcycling waste plastics into value-added hydrocarbons, like sustainable fuel components. Catalytic plastic upcycling typically utilizes gas-phase hydrogen (H2) for reactions like hydrogenolysis, hydrogenation, and hydrodeoxygenation. However, their scalability is hindered by the challenges of storing and transporting high-pressure H2. Siddhesh’s research specifically aims at (1) utilizing hydrogen donors in place of gas-phase H2 for polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) upcycling, and (2) elucidating the mechanisms of these tandem reactions on multi-functional catalysts. Deconstructing plastics using in-situ generated H2comprises catalytic hydrogen transfer reactions. Siddhesh is researching the role of catalytically active sites and their influence on the reaction mechanisms of dehydrogenation of the alcohol (H2-donor) and transfer hydrogenolysis of plastic substrates. He is specifically working on mitigating competitive adsorption by the alcohol and its side reactions that hinder substrate conversion. Sidhesh also works on computation studies elucidating fundamental catalyst perturbations, such as strain, to modulate the activity and selectivity of H2 activation and hydrogenation reactions, two important reactions in catalytic plastic conversion. He aims to combine reactivity, characterization, and computations to elucidate the mechanisms of catalytic plastic upcycling reactions. This research aims to develop catalyst design principles and engineering solutions for efficiently converting waste plastics into valuable chemical compounds.
Biography
Siddhesh Shirish Borkar is a graduate student at the Artie McFerrin Department of Chemical Engineering at Texas A&M University. Siddhesh hails from Mumbai, India, and earned his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the National Institute of Technology, Rourkela, India, in 2020. He then worked as a technology design engineer for a year. Siddhesh began his graduate studies in 2021 at Texas A&M University and earned his Master of Science degree in 2023. He is currently pursuing his doctoral degree in chemical engineering under the guidance of Prof. Manish Shetty, who was also his MS advisor and anticipates graduation in 2027. Throughout his undergraduate and graduate studies, Siddhesh has focused his research efforts on the domain of materials and catalysis for environmental sustainability. In addition to research, he has experience working as a teaching assistant in undergraduate courses in fundamental and applied chemical engineering. He has also held leadership positions in multiple university-level social and professional development organizations. His PhD focuses on catalytically upcycling waste plastics into value-added compounds, including fuel-range hydrocarbons. Through his research, Siddhesh aims to raise awareness about utilizing chemistry and technology for environmental remediation and strives to apply catalysis and reaction engineering to contribute to our sustainable development.
