CUPOLA project

From 31 July to 1 September 2026, a group of four young researchers from the Faculty of Chemistry at the Silesian University of Technology (SUT) undertook a research placement at Xi’an Jiaotong University (XJTU) in China – one of the key partner institutions in the CUPOLA project.

Thanks to the hospitality of Prof. Ningbo Gao, the researchers had the opportunity to familiarise themselves with XJTU’s research infrastructure and laboratory facilities, including a laboratory equipped with a two-stage batch reactor. The following days were devoted to collaborating with the host team to draw up detailed research plans, allocate tasks and establish a work schedule.

The experimental work, which formed the core of the visit, focused on the catalytic pyrolysis of polymeric materials. In the first stage, a modified ZSM-5 catalyst was prepared by addition of nickel salts by means of wet impregnation method, then the material was calcined to obtain the desired catalytic properties. In parallel, five commonly used polymers were selected as feedstocks: PET, PET-G, PP, PLA and HDPE. A series of pyrolysis experiments was then carried out, during which gaseous and liquid products – including pyrolysis oil – were collected and characterised. The composition of the product was determined by gas chromatography (GC) and gas chromatography coupled with mass spectrometry (GC-MS), which allowed to identify in detail the compounds formed during thermal decomposition.