Posted on 04/23/2021 12:20:00 PM PDT by Red Badger
If you didn't know already, we have bad news - the plastic recycling industry is severely under-performing. Only 9 percent of plastic waste ever produced has been recycled. Around 12 percent has been burnt, leaving 79 percent of all plastic ever produced still out there in the world.
While we work out how to be less reliant on these materials, researchers have also been investigating how to reuse one of the most common types of plastic – polyolefin – by turning it into fuel.
"Single-use plastics impose an enormous environmental threat, but their recycling, especially of polyolefins, has been proven challenging," researchers from the University of Delaware (UD) write in a new paper.
"We report a direct method to selectively convert polyolefins to branched, liquid fuels including diesel, jet, and gasoline-range hydrocarbons."
This is definitely not the first time scientists have turned plastic into fuel (in fact, we've been reporting on these methods for years), but like most material sciences, the goal is to get the most plastic converted into the most fuel, at the cheapest cost and using the least amount of resources to do so.
The new technique ticks plenty of those boxes: it uses 50 percent less energy than similar technologies, can be done at temperatures of a normal kitchen oven, and doesn't involve adding carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. All exciting steps in the right direction.
"Plastic waste is a serious environmental issue. I believe that this research can help lead to better methods of plastic repurposing," said Andrew Danielson, a UD chemical engineer.
The team uses a chemical process called hydrocracking to break down the carbon bonds in the plastic, using a catalyst made up of minerals called zeolites and mixed metal oxides.
plastic fuel (Liu et al., Science Advances, 2021)
Mixed metal oxides are used to break down large molecules, while zeolites foster the formation of branched molecules – a technique which makes the plastic goop more easily translated into an end product.
"Alone these two catalysts do poorly. Together, the combination does magic, melting the plastics down and leaving no plastic behind," UD biomolecular engineer Dion Vlachos said.
"These are not exotic materials, so we can quickly start thinking about how to use the technology."
As an added bonus, the team's process doesn't need to separate different types of plastics, which is helpful when many of the plastic products now sold are multicomponent - either as composites, blends, or having multiple layers of different types.
This is far from the end of plastic waste, of course, and only deal with one symptom of the larger issue. To create a circular economy, we have to eventually stop pulling oil from the ground to make plastic, which is something that the researchers are well aware of.
"As this circular economy gets going, the world will need to make fewer original plastics because we will be reusing materials made today into the future," Vlachos said.
"We want to use green electricity to drive the chemical processing involved in making new things … that's where we are headed over the next 10 to 20 years."
Sounds like itis time to get started.
The research has been published in Science Advances.
“Plastics”
The “Graduate” is one of the few movies I have seen.
PS: I must confess that I might not have gotten it outside the context of the thread’s subject matter.
They’re fat and soft, so yes. They’d make fine fuel.
“Single-use plastics impose an enormous environmental threat,*********************************************
I hear this all the time but aside from resting quietly in a properly designed landfill, no one ever describes what enormous threat plastics pose to the environment.
I don’t oppose burning them as fuel at all as long as it is economical to do so, but as long as natural gas is being burned at the well heads because we have so much due to fracking success, it makes no sense.
Graduated from UD back in 70. Good to see them produce some good ideas anyway.
SE Asia, not the US, has a serious solid waste/ plastic trash problem.
Heat ANY plastic in a retort and it’ll gasification into flammable gas. ANY solids left behind will burn as well, but differently.
Perfect
Not quite that simple. Not close to that simple.
Really? So we start making fuel from used plastic and pretty soon there's a demand for this fuel and pretty soon we need more and more of it!
Please Mrs. Robertson
“Can we make fuel from “woke” folks?’
Soylent green?
L8r
The thing about Hoffman he is best as a supporting character, as in Papillon or midnight cowboy. He breaks down when in the lead as in Kramer vs Kramer or tootsie.
I’ve heard this for years.
This article is 1980 all over again.
With high e ergy costs there is no recycling.
There’s gold in those garbage dumps—black market gasoline to be made—the Biden Blend...
well played
We’ll all be driving ELECTRIC CARS so there will be no need for a fuel for them.....................
Robinson..................
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