Recovering waste plastics using shape-selective nano-scale reactors as catalysts

Zheng Zhang, Kinga Gora-Marek, Jonathan S. Watson, Jinsen Tian, Matthew R. Ryder, Karolina A. Tarach, Lidia López-Pérez, Joaquin Martínez-Triguero, Ignacio Melián-Cabrera

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

62 Scopus citations

Abstract

Waste plastic composed of low-density polyethylene can be converted into a potential new fuel source. This research describes a new nano-scale catalyst with well-defined and uniform surface openings. This material, called Al-SBA-15, is shape-selective, so it uses only one step to generate a gasoline-type product that requires less additional processing compared to that produced by previous catalysts.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)39-42
Number of pages4
JournalNature Sustainability
Volume2
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Jan 1 2019

Funding

1Engineering and Technology Institute Groningen (ENTEG), Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands. 2Faculty of Chemistry, Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Kraków, Poland. 3Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College London, London, UK. 4School of Metallurgy and Materials, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK. 5Neutron Scattering Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN, USA. 6Área de Química Aplicada, Departamento de Ciencias Básicas, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Mexico City, Mexico. 7Institute of Chemical Technology (UPV-CSIC), Polytechnic University of Valencia, Spanish Council for Scientific Research, Valencia, Spain. 8European Bioenergy Research Institute, School of Engineering and Applied Science, Aston University, Birmingham, UK. 9These authors contributed equally: Zheng Zhang, Kinga Gora-Marek, Jonathan S Watson. *e-mail: [email protected] This work was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), under the Vidi grant no. 10284, carried out at the ITM-FWN, Groningen University. We acknowledge the support of the industrial steering committee (Shell, DSM, Norit-Cabot Nederland) and R. Winkler (Dutch Technology Foundation). Special thanks go to M. Rigutto (Shell) for his cooperation. We acknowledge E. Polushkin (Polymer Chemistry and Bioengineering, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen) for his technical assistance and the NWO for the financial support for project no. 700.58.103 (Small Angle X-ray Facility). M.R.R. acknowledges the US Department of Energy Office of Science (Basic Energy Sciences) for research funding and the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), a US Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 for access to supercomputing facilities. K.G-M and K.T. acknowledge the National Science Centre, Poland (grant no. 2015/18/E/ST4/00191). We also thank M. Hadfield (Analytix) for his assistance. D. Wiersma and B. Feringa (Groningen University) are thanked for support in setting a TGA apparatus. M. Makkee and his team (TU-Delft) are thanked for support, and guidance, in setting advanced infrastructure for heterogeneous catalysis research at Groningen University, by endorsing a capital STW research grant.

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