Greenhouse gases and plastic waste are two of the biggest environmental problems facing the world today. Cambridge’s new nuclear reactor is designed to tackle both simultaneously, converting carbon dioxide and used plastic bottles into useful materials and is powered entirely by sunlight.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide has reached the highest levels in thousands of years, resulting in devastating climate impacts. On the other hand, our dependence on plastic is causing large amounts of material to accumulate in rivers, oceans, and everywhere from pole to pole. I came to design nuclear reactors that convert matter into oil, fuel, and other useful chemicals and materials.
But now, Cambridge scientists have designed the first reactor that can handle both pollutants simultaneously. The device consists of two separate compartments, one for plastics and one for CO2, and units within each compartment that absorb energy from light and use it to trigger catalysts that convert raw materials into more useful things. I’m here. The light absorber is perovskite, which has emerged as a promising material for solar cells, and the catalyst can be modified depending on the desired end product.
“Normally, converting CO2 takes a lot of energy, but with our system, you basically just put light on it and it starts converting harmful products into useful and sustainable ones.” said Motiar Rahaman, Ph.D., co-first author of the study. “Before we had this system, nothing was capable of selectively and efficiently manufacturing high-value products.”
In tests, the team demonstrated that the reactor can operate efficiently under normal conditions of temperature and pressure, using only sunlight for energy. A copper-palladium alloy catalyst was able to convert plastic bottles into glycolic acid, a chemical used in the cosmetics industry. It was converted to syngas using an indium alloy and converted to formic acid using a specific enzyme.
Even better, nuclear reactors work very efficiently. The team says its production rate is up to 100 times more efficient than devices that use other solar photocatalysts. The next step is to further develop the reactor over the next five years to produce more complex molecules.
“What’s very special about this system is its versatility and tunability. Right now we’re making fairly simple carbon-based molecules, but in the future, we’ll be able to tune the system and make catalysts. Just by changing it, we may be able to create much more complex products,” said Subhajit Bhattacharjee, co-first author of the study.
A study was published in a journal natural synthetic.
Source: University of Cambridge
