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Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

phys.org

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Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#41

Post by Gigachad »

timschmidt wrote: post #34
Gigachad wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cleanup is impossible though. How are you going to clean up a trillion nanoplastic dust particles? What is the effective difference between phasing out fleece clothing vs charging $100M for a jacket?

One includes freedom and creates an economic incentive for the development of environmental rehabilitation, recycling, and carbon negative technologies. If some celebrity wants to single-handedly fund the development of a microplastics recovery technology as part of a red carpet fashion item, I'm OK with that.

The problem with this is it doesn't give any consideration to the feasibility of alternatives or timelines to change things. If you just drop a blanket "every product must include it's cleanup costs", you're telling the public that their current life essentials are now unbelievably expensive.

Vs selectively picking products which have easy alternatives and providing phase out periods which match the difficulty of replacing them. If you tell the public you are going to make car tires cost millions of dollars, you'll be voted out. If you tell them that plastic confetti will be replaced with paper confetti in 12 months you'll make real progress.

This doesn't prevent innovation. Scientists will still do research, develop new recycling tech and processes.

Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#43

Post by aitchnyu »

math wrote: post #35
culi wrote: post #18

This is great but PET (symbol #1) is one of the few plastics that ARE recyclable. I wonder if any of these techniques can be used to solve the non-recyclable plastic problems

Aduro’s tech works with hard to recycle, dirty, mixed plastic. Search for Eric Appelman interview on YouTube for more info. Some of the retail investor coverage is cringeworthy, but my take is the tech is likely as good as described (disclosure: I’m an investor).

Apparently 95% of the test sample can be recovered. If its dirty and mixed, how much can TPA can be recovered and is the sludge chemically inert and landfillable?

Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#44

Post by Synaesthesia »

lxmorj wrote: post #37

Wouldn't (fully) burning all single-use plastics effectively make them no more long-lived and problematic than burning crude oil at sea? I know that's a low bar, but it seems like at least you're getting two uses out of them at that point...

A lot of plastics are incinerated. I think it has to be at a high temperature. Of course this does emit carbon dioxide.

Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#46

Post by stosssik »

A promising approach—especially if it proves as simple and low-cost at scale. It’s obviously not going to "disrupt" the plastics industry overnight, but it could offer a valuable local alternative, particularly in regions dealing with massive plastic waste imports. The real question is whether this kind of tech can evolve outside of patent lock-in and centralized exploitation models.

Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#47

Post by math »

aitchnyu wrote: post #43
math wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aduro’s tech works with hard to recycle, dirty, mixed plastic. Search for Eric Appelman interview on YouTube for more info. Some of the retail investor coverage is cringeworthy, but my take is the tech is likely as good as described (disclosure: I’m an investor).

Apparently 95% of the test sample can be recovered. If its dirty and mixed, how much can TPA can be recovered and is the sludge chemically inert and landfillable?

Results will vary a lot with all the parameters (of which there are many). They don’t disclose all the detail but I know they have done thousands of tests across the parameters space. I know they believe they can process sludge produced from other processes.. The industry generally is very opaque, I think for competitive reasons and also because it’s so complex/nuanced.

Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#49

Post by Mashimo »

lxmorj wrote: post #37

Wouldn't (fully) burning all single-use plastics effectively make them no more long-lived and problematic than burning crude oil at sea? I know that's a low bar, but it seems like at least you're getting two uses out of them at that point...

And if you produce heat / energy from burning it, you can technically call it recycling :)

Put some filters on top of the power plant exhausts and it's clean enough to build a ski slope on top of it.

Re: Scientists break down plastic using a simple, inexpensive catalyst and air

#50

Post by piokoch »

There is no such a thing like "plastic". The article is about PET - polyethylene terephthalate, there are hundreds other "plastics", which different chemical propensities. The problem is not actual act of recycling, but figuring out what a given piece is made of. PET is popular - 70% of all bottles are made of it, but there are those 30%, so the most expensive part - sorting - has to be carried anyway. Plus we target only bottles.

Recycling is a great example of the rule "Privatizing Profits and Socializing Losses". Business is packing their stuff in whatever they want and then citizens, authorities has to deal with the wastes business produced.

Why we can't force to use for bottles/packaging a single type of plastic? Why we can't force easily removable labels on the bottles (the glue that is used to stick half plastic/half paper labels is a deal breaker for simple recycling), I think only in Japan this is mandatory. Why we allow making packages (especially for take-away food from pseudo-paper (which is a paper with plastic coating), which is not recyclable at all and, in fact, is much worst than plastic, but business claims that "now we are eco, see, we use paper for packaging)?

Why we allow to use for packaging whatever business wants? Why the cost and effort of the recycling has to be on people and local governments?

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