{"id":121008,"date":"2023-01-17T07:35:00","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T06:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/?p=121008"},"modified":"2023-01-12T14:01:59","modified_gmt":"2023-01-12T13:01:59","slug":"solar-powered-system-converts-plastic-and-greenhouse-gases-into-sustainable-fuels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/solar-powered-system-converts-plastic-and-greenhouse-gases-into-sustainable-fuels\/","title":{"rendered":"Solar-powered system converts plastic and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/h2>\n\n\n\n\n\n
\"\n\nSolar-powered
Solar-powered reactor for converting plastic and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels
Credit: Reisner Lab<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the system, which can convert two waste streams into two chemical products at the same time \u2013 the first time this has been achieved in a solar-powered reactor.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reactor converts carbon dioxide (CO2<\/sub>) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries. In tests, CO2<\/sub> 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 easily be tuned to produce different products by changing the type of catalyst used in the reactor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Converting plastics and greenhouse gases \u2013 two of the biggest threats facing the natural world \u2013 into useful and valuable products using solar energy is an important step in the transition to a more sustainable, circular economy. The results<\/a> are reported in the journal Nature Synthesis<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cConverting waste into something useful using solar energy is a major goal of our research,\u201d said\u00a0Professor Erwin Reisner<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0from the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, the paper\u2019s senior author. \u201cPlastic pollution is a huge problem worldwide, and often, many of the plastics we throw into recycling bins are incinerated or end up in landfill.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Reisner also leads the Cambridge Circular Plastics Centre (CirPlas)<\/a>, which aims to eliminate plastic waste by combining blue-sky thinking with practical measures.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other solar-powered \u2018recycling\u2019 technologies hold promise for addressing plastic pollution and for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, but to date, they have not been combined in a single process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA solar-driven technology that could help to address plastic pollution and greenhouse gases at the same time could be a game-changer in the development of a circular economy,\u201d said Subhajit Bhattacharjee<\/strong>, the paper\u2019s co-first author.<\/p>

\u201cWe also need something that\u2019s tuneable, so that you can easily make changes depending on the final product you want,\u201d said co-first author Dr Motiar Rahaman<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The researchers developed an integrated reactor with two separate compartments: one for plastic, and one for greenhouse gases. The reactor uses a light absorber based on perovskite \u2013 a promising alternative to silicon for next-generation solar cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The team designed different catalysts, which were integrated into the light absorber. By changing the catalyst, the researchers could then change the end product. Tests of the reactor under normal temperature and pressure conditions showed that the reactor could efficiently convert PET plastic bottles and CO2<\/sub> into different carbon-based fuels such as CO, syngas or formate, in addition to glycolic acid. The Cambridge-developed reactor produced these products at a rate that is also much higher than conventional photocatalytic CO2<\/sub> reduction processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGenerally, CO2<\/sub> conversion requires a lot of energy, but with our system, basically you just shine a light at it, and it starts converting harmful products into something useful and sustainable,\u201d said Rahaman<\/strong>. \u201cPrior to this system, we didn\u2019t have anything that could make high-value products selectively and efficiently.\u201d<\/p>

\u201cWhat\u2019s so special about this system is the versatility and tuneability \u2013 we\u2019re making fairly simple carbon-based molecules right now, but in future, we could be able to tune the system to make far more complex products, just by changing the catalyst,\u201d said Bhattacharjee.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Reisner recently received new funding from the European Research Council to help the development of their solar-powered reactor. Over the next five years, they hope to further develop the reactor to produce more complex molecules. The researchers say that similar techniques could someday be used to develop an entirely solar-powered recycling plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDeveloping a circular economy, where we make useful things from waste instead of throwing it into landfill, is vital if we\u2019re going to meaningfully address the climate crisis and protect the natural world,\u201d said Reisner<\/strong>. \u201cAnd powering these solutions using the Sun means that we\u2019re doing it cleanly and sustainably.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The research was supported in part by the European Union, the European Research Council, the Cambridge Trust, Hermann and Marianne Straniak Stiftung, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Erwin Reisner is a Fellow of St John\u2019s College, Cambridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reference<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Subhajit Bhattacharjee, Motiar Rahaman et al. \u2018Photoelectrochemical CO2-to-fuel conversion with simultaneous plastic reforming<\/a>.\u2019 Nature Synthesis (2023). DOI: 10.1038\/s44160-022-00196-0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge, developed the system, which can convert two waste streams into two chemical products at the same time \u2013 the first time this has been achieved in a solar-powered reactor. The reactor converts carbon dioxide (CO2) and plastics into different products that are useful in a range of industries. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","nova_meta_subtitle":"Researchers have developed a system that can transform plastic waste and greenhouse gases into sustainable fuels and other valuable products \u2013 using just the energy from the Sun","footnotes":""},"categories":[5571],"tags":[10744,10416,12366,11966,10453,12450,10743],"supplier":[5159,7921,5585,16059,1311],"class_list":["post-121008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-co2-based","tag-carboncapture","tag-circulareconomy","tag-fuels","tag-plastics","tag-recycling","tag-syngas","tag-useco2","supplier-engineering-and-physical-sciences-research-council-epsrc","supplier-european-research-council","supplier-european-union","supplier-uk-research-and-innovation-ukri","supplier-university-of-cambridge-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121008"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121008\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121008"},{"taxonomy":"supplier","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/renewable-carbon.eu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/supplier?post=121008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}