Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Valuable Commodities, Create a Bigger Market for Waste Materials

As much as plastic has been maligned in recent years, it was actually a remarkable invention for humanity, allowing us to craft unique materials for essential items and everyday necessities. The problem is that so much of it ends up in landfills and oceans. The best way forward in dealing with plastic today is to create a circular economy in which resources can be reused, rather than thrown away—and a new technology developed by an international research team may be an innovative solution to address the problem. This way we can curb the production of new plastic materials, and reuse and recycle the existing ones in order to prevent them getting into nature.

In the October 2020, scientists from Oxford and other universities in the UK, in collaboration with research groups from China and Saudi Arabia, announced they had developed a simple new method for retrieving valuable chemicals from plastic waste, in order that recyclers may have a means of making more money from collecting plastic waste. According to this study, the team’s new process involves breaking plastic down into its molecular components by essentially pulverizing it and using microwaves. Doing so releases the core components of plastic materials, including hydrogen and carbon, which can then be used form high-value products, like carbon nanotubes.

To accomplish this feat, the team used a novel set of catalysts. Normally, waste recycling equipment will heat up the plastic itself to melt it down. In this case, however, researchers heated up their signature blend of catalysts first, which stimulates the conversion process forward in fascinating new ways.

“This opens up an entirely new area of catalysis in terms of selectivity and offers a potential route to the challenge of the plastic waste Armageddon, particularly in developing countries as one route to the hydrogen economy – effectively enabling them to leap-frog the sole use of fossil fuels.” Professor Peter Edwards at Oxford’s Department of Chemistry

It’s important to keep in mind that the team cited here used only a small sample set of plastic waste. However, they believe the process can scale meaningfully to an industrial level.