Plastic Trash To Fuel: From The Labs of UC Irvine - The Innovation That Our World Needs
As the world faces a severe problem of plastic (polyethylene) overdose, the synthetic polymer is getting increasingly difficult to degrade thanks to its chemically inert nature. A team of researchers from University of California, Irvine and Chinese Academy of Sciences working on the problem of converting the piling plastic trash to something useful seems to have found a solution. They have come up with a new method that can convert plastic into liquid fuels and waxes by using the easily available short alkanes such as petroleum ethers.
As we see garbage bins and landfills all around us overflowing with plastic trash - the left-over bottles, polythene bags, plastic films etc., the time has come to recycle it. In fact, we need to convert the overgrowing waste into something of real value. And what better than liquid fuel, the material suffering from shortage across nations.
All existing methods to convert plastics, especially polyethylene, into fuel have proven to be either very expensive or non-scalable.
The new method created by the team involves mixing plastics with an organometallic catalyst (doped with metal iridium), a process that breaks the strong bonds in plastic, makes them weak, to create a diesel-like fuel. The researchers claim that the fuel created this way could power vehicles and other motors in use today.
The goal of the team is to make the ratio of plastic to catalyst as 10,000:1, while what they have currently achieved is ~ 30:1. They also hope to replace iridium as the catalyst with something more abundantly available and inexpensive.
What are your thoughts about creating fuel from plastic? Share with us in comments below.
Source: <a href="https://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-irvine-chemists-help-find-way-recycle-plastic-waste-fuel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">UC Irvine chemists help find way to recycle plastic waste into fuel | University of California</a> | #-Link-Snipped-#
As we see garbage bins and landfills all around us overflowing with plastic trash - the left-over bottles, polythene bags, plastic films etc., the time has come to recycle it. In fact, we need to convert the overgrowing waste into something of real value. And what better than liquid fuel, the material suffering from shortage across nations.
All existing methods to convert plastics, especially polyethylene, into fuel have proven to be either very expensive or non-scalable.
The new method created by the team involves mixing plastics with an organometallic catalyst (doped with metal iridium), a process that breaks the strong bonds in plastic, makes them weak, to create a diesel-like fuel. The researchers claim that the fuel created this way could power vehicles and other motors in use today.
The goal of the team is to make the ratio of plastic to catalyst as 10,000:1, while what they have currently achieved is ~ 30:1. They also hope to replace iridium as the catalyst with something more abundantly available and inexpensive.
What are your thoughts about creating fuel from plastic? Share with us in comments below.
Source: <a href="https://universityofcalifornia.edu/news/uc-irvine-chemists-help-find-way-recycle-plastic-waste-fuel" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">UC Irvine chemists help find way to recycle plastic waste into fuel | University of California</a> | #-Link-Snipped-#
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