Converting plastic waste into valuable chemicals
Source: https://www.earth.com/news/converting-plastic-waste-into-valuable-chemicals/
Author: Andrei Ionescu
A research team led by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) has now discovered an innovative method to convert plastics more efficiently to valuable chemicals, through a process called “upcycling.” This technique is cheaper than previous ones and produces less methane. “The key discovery we report is the very low metal load,” said study senior author Janos Szanyi, a chemist at PNNL. “This makes the catalyst much cheaper.” “It was very interesting to us that there had been nothing previously published showing this result,” added first author Linxiao Chen, a postdoctoral fellow at the same laboratory. “This research shows the opportunity to develop effective, selective, and versatile catalysts for plastic upcycling.” Scientists have already known that adding hydrogen to difficult-to-recycle plastics such as polypropylene and polyethylene presents a promising strategy to convert plastic waste into value-added small hydrocarbons, through a process called hydrogenolysis.