Novosibirsk State University in Russia has announced that it has obtained a patent for an innovative method of creating a chemical catalyst used to convert plastic waste into fuel that can be used with various types of engines.
The university explained in a statement that its scientists collaborated on this project with scientists from the Russian Academy of Sciences. The statement read: "We have succeeded in establishing effective cooperation between representatives of the real economy and our scientists, students, and graduate students at Novosibirsk State University. They have combined their efforts, experience, and knowledge to establish a technically complex and knowledge-intensive process, namely the catalytic conversion of the products of pyrolysis of plastic waste."
The statement indicated that the catalyst is slated for production in a state-of-the-art laboratory specifically designed for this purpose, located within the university's new scientific and research center, one of the facilities in the second phase of the modern campus. The technology has undergone successful laboratory testing and is currently being implemented at the factories of the project's industrial partner, Moscow-based Onium Plus.
The university explained that this development is unique in the market and fundamentally different from the catalysts used in processing traditional petroleum feedstocks. Scientists have developed a complete set of catalysts that, depending on the composition of the pyrolysis oil, can be converted into engine fuels, such as jet fuel.
The catalyst is currently designed to work with model materials that represent a mixture of polyethylene and polypropylene, but the next challenge, according to the researchers, is to adapt it to work with real materials, namely pyrolysis oil extracted from plastic waste in municipal landfills, after it has been thermally treated in an industrial facility specializing in pyrolysis.
