The Carbon Sink
Mass-produced plastics can be found almost every corner of the world today. A well-known product is plastic bottles, which can be made from several different materials, and recycling them is not easy. Although recovery plastic is associated with costs and is a complex process, making them still not very common, scientists are exploring applications for recovered materials that could make this process more beneficial.
A group of chemists from Rice University has announced the results of their research, demonstrating that used plastics can be useful in combating high carbon dioxide emissions. As reported in the journal ASC Nano, the scientists explored the process of pyrolysis, which is the chemical decomposition of materials. It involves heating certain materials to very high temperatures and maintaining anaerobic conditions. Pyrolysis is currently used in the petrochemical industry, among other things.
The chemists from Rice University heat-degraded plastics in the presence of potassium acetate, resulting in highly specific molecules with microscopic pores that are excellent at capturing and binding carbon dioxide molecules. This material could be used as an ideal carbon dioxide absorber, for example, in the form of filters for the chimneys of power plants that burn fossil fuels. This absorber has properties that allow for multiple uses, and capturing a ton of carbon dioxide with it would be several times cheaper than current methods of sequestering (capturing) carbon dioxide.