They put the plastic in a medium of 200 degrees Celsius, and it turned into gasoline and diesel
Researchers at the American Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a new way to turn the world’s most common plastic waste into fuel, reported the Interesting Engineering. A special process has been developed to process polyethylene that breaks down the plastic into fuel-grade molecules. If the solution can be scaled up, it could be a huge step forward in the management of plastic waste.
The transformation of plastic into oil is typically done through an energy-intensive process, pyrolysis, which reaches a temperature of 500 degrees Celsius or higher to break up the strong bond between the molecules. The American researchers were curious as to whether the process could be carried out with less energy investment.
The team placed the waste in a mixture of molten salts containing aluminum chloride. The process was surprisingly effective: fuel was produced from 60 percent of the waste, which required neither expensive precious metals nor organic solvents. In addition, the researchers managed to carry out the process with much less energy investment, as the process operated at slightly below 200 degrees Celsius.
https://hvg.hu/tudomany/20260408_repulogep-fenntarthato-uzemanyag-dekarbonizacio-katalizator
With the help of advanced imaging technology and the tracking of atoms, the experts also observed how polyethylene is transformed into fuel. The In a study published in the scientific journal ACS Publications, the scientists write that, based on the data, the aluminum atoms bind to the polymers, which helps the reaction to take place.
They also found that the process uses aluminum atoms to tear long polymer chains into pieces. According to the observations, the simpler chains always resulted in gasoline-like fuel, and the more complex ones always resulted in diesel-like fuel.
The researchers believe that the process can already be integrated into industrial processes, which can facilitate the processing of plastics. However, the solution still has drawbacks. One of them is that the aluminum-based salt in the process absorbs a lot of water from the environment – the air – which in turn can make the process unstable. Specialists are therefore now working to make the processing of polyethylene more stable in the future.
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