Polyethylene Waste Could Be A Thing Of The Past -- University Of Adelaide

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University of Adelaide

Dec. 8, 2023

An international team of experts undertaking fundamental research has developed a way of using polyethylene waste (PE) as a feedstock and converted it into valuable chemicals, via light-driven photocatalysis.

The University of Adelaide's Professor Shizhang Qiao, Chair of Nanotechnology, and Director, Center for Materials in Energy and Catalysis, at the School of Chemical Engineering, led the team that published their findings in the journal Science Advances.

"We have upcycled polyethylene plastic waste into ethylene and propionic acid with high selectivity using atomically dispersed metal catalysts," said Professor Qiao.

"An oxidation-coupled room-temperature photocatalysis method was used to convert the waste into valuable products with high selectivity. Nearly 99% of the liquid product is propionic acid, alleviating the problems associated with complex products that then require separation. Renewable solar energy was used rather than industrial processes that consume fossil fuel and emit greenhouse gases."

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