It’s really hard to go by a day without using plastic products. They’re inexpensive and durable, and as a result – levels of plastic production by humans are high. We know about tons of plastic waste accumulated in oceans. By 2050, the ocean will have more plastic than fish, and that’s frightening. But how can we, humans, solve the problem of a growing number of plastic junk on our planet?
One of many ways to fight plastic pollution is to convert plastic trash deposits into something valuable. One of Purdue’s University teams came up with an idea to convert commonly used plastic into oil. As ACS Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering reports – the aforementioned process is way more energy-efficient than recycling and burning plastic waste.
Nearly 25% of plastic junk is polypropylene, used to make products of everyday life. Chemical engineer Linda Wang and her team focused on re-using this type of plastic (2nd and 4th category of resin’s identification plastic code). Plastics are hydrocarbons that are made from petroleum and can be converted back to liquid fuel. The Purdue team uses a method called hydrothermal processing.
There were scientists using this technique concerning other types of plastic before, but the yield of those processes has been very low. Wang’s team place the polypropylene in a reactor filled with water and hit it up to temperatures from 380–500°C for up to about five hours at a big pressure of 23 Megapascals. At this high heat and pressure, water breaks down the plastic and changes it into the oil. Purdue’s University team manage to transform approximately 90% of plastic into oil.
Emergent oil can be used to make building blocks for commonly used fuels and chemicals. The team’s analysis shows the hydrothermal process uses less energy and produces fewer emissions than incinerating polypropylene plastics.
Linda Wang and her colleagues didn’t stop there. Now, they are working on optimizing the production of gasoline and diesel fuels.
Sources:
https://www.anthropocenemagazine.org/2019/02/new-technique-converts-plastic-waste-to-fuel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plastic_pollution
https://www.mnn.com/green-tech/research-innovations/stories/plastic-waste-converted-gas-fuel
It will be one of the most interesting way of getting rid of plastic, very cool idea!