Cambridge reactor turns plastic waste and carbon dioxide into useful chemicals

The Cambridge team unveiled a version of their solar reactor six months ago . It consists of two chambers, one for CO2 and the other for plastic waste, and the entire room is powered by perovskite solar cells. However, this version only works with concentrated CO2 from a cylinder, which is useful as a proof of concept but not necessarily applicable in a real world setup.

So for the new version, the team tweaked it to handle CO2 from flue gases and even ambient air. First, air is pumped through an alkaline solution that captures only CO2 while allowing other gases, such as oxygen and nitrogen, to escape as bubbles. This concentrated CO2 can then be processed with the help of another chamber.

"The plastic components are an important trick of the system," said Dr. Motiar Rahaman, co-first author of the study. "Capturing and using CO2 from the air makes chemistry more difficult. However, if we add plastic waste to the system, the plastic donates electrons to CO2. Plastic breaks down into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry, and CO2 is converted into synthetic gas, which is a simple fuel."

The team says the technology could go a long way towards addressing these two major environmental hazards and ultimately help pave the way for a future without fossil fuels.

"We're not only interested in decarbonization, but also in defossilization - the complete elimination of fossil fuels that we need to create a truly circular economy," said lead author of the study, Professor Erwin Reisner. "In the medium term, this technology can help reduce carbon emissions by capturing them from industry and turning them into something useful, but ultimately, we need to take fossil fuels completely out of the equation and remove carbon emissions from the air. capture carbon dioxide."

The research was published in the journal Joule .