The University of Cambridge team said the system can convert two waste streams into two chemical products simultaneously.
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 also be tuned to produce different products by changing the type of catalyst used in the reactor.
“Converting waste into something useful using solar energy is a major goal of our research,” said professor Erwin Reisner, 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...