The use of plastics in the world is costing us and the ocean is suffering from the plastic waste.
But thanks to the scientists at Swansea University, people are prepared to have a solution to the kind of waste that can kill thousands of marine life each year.
The new study, led by Dr. Moritz Kuehnel, will turn plastic waste into hydrogen. If we were lucky, someday we would use this amount of hydrogen to fuel the car.
Dr Kuehnel told the BBC: "There are a lot of plastic used every year - billions of tons - and only a fraction of it is being recycled, and we are trying to find a way to use it for recycling." .
The researchers cut the resin, roughen it and add a catalyst to create a material that can absorb sunlight and turn it into chemical energy.
"Our process is based on the principle of" photoreforming. "It uses semiconductor nanoparticles (called quantum dots) to turn solar energy into electricity," said Kuehnel. into chemical energy.
The researchers then put the resin into an alkaline solution and use a sunlight or a solar simulation lamp to create hydrogen bubbles on the surface.
"Quantum dots can promote two simultaneous chemical reactions: producing hydrogen gas from water and decomposing the structure of plastics, the process is actually very simple: The plastic is dropped into the plastic and then placed in an alkaline solution. "After the light hits the plastic, hydrogen bubbles appear." At that time, we could use hydrogen to fuel the car.
One drawback to plastic bottle recycling is that they are usually made from PET, polyethylene terephthalate, which needs to be cleaned to be recycled into a new, transparent bottle. But the university's process does not need to clean the material, so it can reduce the amount of waste that is harmful to the environment.
This process is also cheaper than plastic recycling - often it is burnt or buried to save money - specifically, it costs about $ 4,000 to recycle 1 ton of plastic.
Advances in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could help the industry sell about 1 million electric cars and fuel cells by 2030. In Japan, Toyota will launch a bus run A fuel cell is called Sora in 2020. They design a fuel cell to combine hydrogen and oxygen into electricity.
The project to produce recycled plastic fuel may take several years before it can be commercialized. The researchers have received some funding from the Swindon Board of Physical and Engineering Sciences and an Austrian petrochemical company.
Dr. Kuehnel said that his team is now looking at expanding the scale from small research (milligram plastic) to more practical dimensions in order to advance the use of this process in practice.
