Guoliang Greg Liu in his lab.
(Photo:Steven Mackay/Virginia Tech.)
Plastics are produced and used by humans like almost no other product.
Guoliang “Greg” Liu in his lab. (Photo:Steven Mackay/Virginia Tech.)
The material infamously lasts ages in landfills.
This plastic waste problem is one of the largest environmental hurdles we face.
Innovative solutions have been sought, but many require special chemicals or evenwormsto process plastic waste.
Liu and Eric Munyaneza preparing plastics. (Photo:Steven Mackay/Virginia Tech.)
Polyethylene makes up most modern consumer plastics.
The latter are carbon chains with a cluster of atoms at one tail.
But how to convert one to the other?
Wwaxes from polyethylene and polypropylene are heated to be oxidized to produce fatty acids via catalytic oxidation. (Photo:Steven Mackay/Virginia Tech.)
Liu took his inspiration from fire, which transforms wood into smoke.
Firewood is mostly made of polymers such as cellulose.
Working with his graduate students Zhen Xu and Eric Munyaneza, Liu and his lab created a boiler system.
Plasticsuch as that found in plastic bottlescould be heated in an oven-like reactor.
The wax, short-chain polyethylene, can then be removed from the reactor.
Known as surfactants, this material is used in soaps and detergents.
With a simple few more steps, it transforms into these high-value products.
There are many benefits to this new method of upcycling plastics.
For one, it can be used with another throw in of common plastic, polypropylene.
This eliminates the need to sort plastics by key in.
Additionally, it lacks the enzymes, worms, and other complex setups of other schemes.
The researchers responsible for this new process have high hopes.
I hope this can be a good start for the war fighting plastic pollution.
Liu and Eric Munyaneza preparing plastics.
(Photo:Steven Mackay/Virginia Tech.)
Wwaxes from polyethylene and polypropylene are heated to be oxidized to produce fatty acids via catalytic oxidation.
(Photo:Steven Mackay/Virginia Tech.)
