Has a UC Berkeley chemistry lab discovered the holy grail of plastic recycling? [View all]

Could this be a first step in mitigating the damage plastics do to our environment?

Ultimately: A plastic that's recylable?

Story by Susanne Rust • 4d • 5 min read

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But new research from a team of chemists at UC Berkeley suggests a glimmer of hope when it comes to the thorny problem of recycling plastics — one that may allow us to have our cake, and potentially take a very small bite, too.
The group has devised a catalytic recycling process that breaks apart the chains of some of the more commonly used plastics — polyethylene and polypropylene — in such a way that the building blocks of those plastics can be used again. In some cases, with more than 90% efficiency.

The catalysts required for the reaction — sodium or tungsten — are readily available and inexpensive, they say, and early tests show the process is likely scalable at industrial levels. It uses no water and has fewer energy requirements than other recycling methods — and is even more efficient than manufacturing new, or so-called virgin, plastics, the researchers say.


Link to story.

Here's another story from The Independent:

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The trillion dollar question: Have scientists found the holy grail of plastic?
Analysis: Scientists from Berkeley Lab claim to have made a plastic that can be recycled endlessly

To recycle or not to recycle? That is the difficult question many of us face several times a day when deciding which bin to put our empty packaging in.

Even when we do recycle, our waste still often ends up in the wrong place.

The most recyclable plastic, PET (polyethylene terephthalate), is recycled as little as 20 per cent of the time.

The rest of it ends up being incinerated, or put in landfill or the ocean. Marine plastic costs the world almost £2 trillion a year in damaged and lost resources, according to research last month.

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Link to abstract at Science:
Polyolefin waste to light olefins with ethylene and base-metal heterogeneous catalysts