Caterina Picuno

• Doctor of Engineering
• Hamburg University of Technology

Featured Application Recycling plastic film used in agriculture for crop protection is currently hindered by contamination with agrochemicals. Experimental tests conducted confirmed that film mechanical characteristics weakened with aging, even if samples treated with double spraying followed slower degradative kinetics. The Carbonyl Index was conf...

The increased use of bioplastics in the market has led to their presence in municipal solid waste streams alongside traditional fossil-based polymers, particularly low-density polyethylene (LDPE), which bioplastics often end up mixed with. This study aimed to assess the impact of cellulose acetate plasticized with triacetin (CAT) on the mechanical...

The ability of full-scale industrial plants to degrade bioplastics waste must be verified to exclude any negative effects on the quality of the process outputs. This study aims to assess the degradation of two thermoplastic cellulose acetate-based bioplastics, in pure and composite forms in both Anaerobic Digestion (AD) and Composting (C) industria...

Only few studies on the behaviour of bioplastics in anaerobic co-digestion could be found in literature and most of them are conducted in batch mode. Despite the fact that continuous experiments confirm or add new insight to the findings acquired from batch ones, there is still lack of such studies. This work aims to cover this gap, carrying out a...

Featured Application This study carried out an analysis of conditions for recycling plastic film for greenhouse/tunnel covers and soil mulching after contact with agrochemicals. First conclusions were reached about possible techniques for reducing the loss of mechanical properties of agricultural plastic waste, contaminated by the contact with agro...

The incomplete degradation of bio-plastics waste is undermining the suitability of current anaerobic digestion (AD) and composting, opening up the exploration of new treatment routes, including mixed waste. Bio-plastics are treated with mixed waste in a mechanical-biological treatment (MBT) plant with the production of a dry fraction for incinerati...

The aim of this work is to assess how the presence of cellulose-based bio-plastics influence the biological stabilization of mixed Municipal Solid Waste (MSW). For the scope, two cellulose acetate bio-plastics have been mixed with a synthetic mixed waste to create samples with and without bio-plastics. A self-induced bio-stabilization has been carr...

Despite the economic and environmental significance of recovering plastics from e-waste, the presence of contaminants (in the form of chemical substances) strongly limits the recycling of this waste stream. Some chemical substances are controlled by international or European guidelines and policies, which are continuously updated to control new sub...

The use of bio-plastic-based packaging as an alternative to conventional plastic packaging is increasing. Among the plethora of different bio-based plastics, the most relevant ones are those that, at the end of their life, can be treated with the organic fraction of municipal solid waste. Even in these cases, their impact on the waste processing an...

The increasing consumption of plastics and plastic products results in correspondingly substantial volumes of waste, which poses considerable environmental burdens. With the ongoing environmental actions, the application of circular economy on this waste stream is becoming inevitable. In this paper, the topics of plastics recycling, circular econom...

Polymers are employed in agriculture in several applications, the most efficient and fruitful of which is the protection of cultivations through the use of cover placed over plants while they are growing, providing protection from climatic factors, while at the same time increasing yield and/or extending the cropping season. Plastic films used for...

Setting up strategies for a sound management of plastic packaging waste (PPW) is becoming increasingly crucial at many levels of the value chain in Europe. After the very first implementation of an extended producer responsibility scheme in Germany in 1991, many EU Countries followed. This resulted in a complex network of schemes that differ from o...

This study aims at defining the current state-of-affairs of the German post-consumer plastic packaging (PCPP) sector. By the use of the Material Flow Analysis (MFA) tool, a comprehensive investigation of the currently available PCPP waste collection and treatment system is conducted, which enables understanding the intrinsic inefficiencies of the w...

This work has two aims. Firstly, to validate the ability of experimental models derived through near infrared spectroscopy for acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polyethylene ter-ephthalate (PET), and polypropylene (PP) in predicting polymers' aging; focusing on the degree of oxidation. Secondly, to assess the r...

The recycling network of post-consumer plastic packaging waste (PCPPW) was studied for the Netherlands in 2017 with material flow analysis (MFA) and data reconciliation techniques. In comparison to the previous MFA of the PCPPW recycling network in 2014, the predominant change is the expansion of the collection portfolio from only plastic packages...

Agrochemical containers shall undergo decontamination before being considered for recycling. This study provides an assessment on the feasibility of the triple-rinsing decontamination procedure, while evaluating the appropriateness of the material's quality for recycling. To achieve the objectives of the study, (1) the effectiveness of the decontam...

In this study antimony concentration was analyzed in 30 plastic items (from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles and e-waste) directly by X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy (XRF) spectroscopy. PET samples were digested in a microwave oven with aqua regia. The plastic components deriving from e-waste followed three parallel routes: 1. microwave dig...

Agriculture, one of the main economic pillars in Europe, plays a growing important role towards the environmental sustainability of the extra-urban land, in which the agricultural activities may proactively contribute to control and regulate the whole ecological conditions. Modern agriculture currently needs big quantities of agrochemicals, which a...

Impurities in bio-waste enter biogas and compost facilities during bio-waste treatment. The plastic fraction is usually separated and sent for incineration. This study is aimed at evaluating the quality of low density polyethylene after being exposed to anaerobic digestion, composting or both processes sequentially, in order to assess for the optim...

Agriculture, one of the main economic pillars in Europe, plays a growing important role towards the environmental sustainability of the extra-urban land, in which the agricultural activities may proactively contribute to control and regulate the whole ecological conditions. Modern agriculture currently needs big quantities of agrochemicals, which a...