The new chemical technique developed by Rice University researchers offers a potential method to turn waste plastic into an effective carbon dioxide (CO2) sorbent for industry. The Rice lab describes it as a “win-win for pressing environmental problems”.
Rice chemist James Tour and Rice alumnus Wala Algozeeb, graduate student Paul Savas and postdoctoral researcher Zhe Yuan reported in the journal ACS Nano that heating plastic waste in the presence of potassium acetate produced particles with nanometre-scale pores that trap carbon dioxide molecules. These particles can remove CO2 from flue gas streams, they reported.
“Experts can fit point sources of CO2 emissions like power plant exhaust stacks with this waste-plastic-derived material to remove enormous amounts of CO2 that would normally fill the atmosphere,” Tour explained. “It is a great way to have one problem, plastic waste, address another problem, CO2 emissions.”
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