A new process turns plastic waste into gasoline and diesel fuel

Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a surprisingly simple way to turn polyethylene, the common plastic used in shopping bags and cutting boards, into gasoline and diesel-like fuels. The process uses inexpensive aluminum-based molten salts to break long plastic molecules into smaller hydrocarbons, producing about 60% gasoline under relatively mild conditions. A new process turns plastic waste into gasoline and diesel fuel.

Polyethylene is widely used in products such as shopping bags and white plastic cutting boards, and large amounts of it ultimately end up as waste. The ORNL team’s method combines the plastic with molten salts containing aluminum chloride. These salts perform two jobs at once, acting as both the reaction medium and the catalyst that drives the chemical conversion.

The researchers have applied for a patent for the technology, and the findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. How Molten Salts Break Plastic Into Fuel To understand why the process works, the scientists closely tracked the chemical reactions that convert the polymer into fuel molecules. Using soft X-ray spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance, the team found that charged aluminum atoms bind with three other atoms, creating highly acidic catalytic sites.