Researchers from the Cambridge University have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products -- using just the energy from the Sun.
The reactor converts the carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries. In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas, a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry. The system can easily be tuned to produce different products by changing the type of catalyst used in the reactor.
Converting plastics and greenhouse gases -- two of the biggest threats facing the natural world -- into useful and valuable products using solar energy is an important step in the transition to a more sustainable, circular economy.
"Converting waste into something useful using solar energy is a major goal of our research," said Professor Erwin Reisner from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the paper's senior author. "Plastic pollution is a huge problem worldwide, and often, many of the plastics we throw into recycling bins are incinerated or end up in landfill."
The researchers developed an integrated reactor with two separate compartments: one for plastic, and one for greenhouse gases. The reactor uses a light absorber based on perovskite -- a promising alternative to silicon for next-generation solar cells.
Source: ScienceDaily