American chemists have developed a way to convert plastic into fuel

A group of scientists from the University of Delaware have found a way to recycle plastic back into fuel. They published their research in the scientific journal Science Advances .

Scientists have developed a way to convert one of the most common plastics in the world, polyolefin, into liquid fuels, including diesel, jet and gasoline.

The method is based on a chemical process called hydrocracking. It breaks the carbon bonds in plastics using catalysts composed of minerals called zeolites and mixed metal oxides. This method is effective in that it does not require a lot of energy – all processes take place at the temperature of the kitchen oven.

According to the latest data, only 9% of the garbage produced in the world has been recycled for all the time, and another 12% was incinerated. The remaining 78% of the garbage, mostly plastic, remains on the planet. The authors of the study hope that their method will radically change this situation.

Earlier it became known that in the Brazilian Sao Paulo launched a large-scale project to clean the river from garbage.