URBANA, Ill., Oct. 05, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Scientists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of California, Santa Barbara and Dow developed a breakthrough course of to rework essentially the most extensively produced plastic — polyethylene (PE) — into the second-most extensively produced plastic, polypropylene (PP), which can considerably cut back greenhouse fuel emissions (GHG).
The new research revealed within the Journal of the American Chemical Society publicizes a sequence of coupled catalytic reactions that remodel PE, which is #2 and #4 plastic that make up 29% of the world’s plastic consumption, into the constructing block propylene that’s the key ingredient to provide PP, also called #5 plastic that accounts for near 25% of the world’s plastic consumption.
This research establishes a proof-of-concept for upcycling PE plastic with greater than 95% selectivity into propylene. The researchers have constructed a reactor that creates a steady movement of propylene that may be transformed into PP simply utilizing present know-how — making this discovery scalable and quickly implementable.
Why this issues: Preliminary evaluation means that if simply 20% of the world’s PE may very well be recovered and transformed through this route, it may signify a possible financial savings of GHG emissions corresponding to taking 3 million automobiles off the highway.
“If we are to upcycle a significant fraction of the over 100 million tons of plastic waste we generate each year, we need solutions that are highly scalable,” Damien Guironnet, Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, mentioned. “Our team demonstrated the chemistry in a flow reactor we developed to produce propylene highly selectively and continuously. This is a key advance to address the immense volume of the problem that we are facing.”
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Co-lead authors: Damien Guironnet, chemical and biomolecular engineering professor at Illinois, and Susannah Scott, Distinguished Professor and Mellichamp Chair of Sustainable Catalytic Processing at UC Santa Barbara.
Image 2: Guironnet-plastic 07
Chemical and biomolecular engineering professor Damien Guironnet and graduate college students Vanessa DaSilva and Nicholas Wang demonstrated a brand new scalable course of that may upcycle plastics. Credit: Heather Coit/University of Illinois
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