Recently, an international research team led by engineers from Texas has pioneered a laser-based technique to decompose plastics and other materials into their fundamental components.
The process devised by the researchers involves placing plastics on two-dimensional materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides and exposing them to laser light. This approach could significantly enhance the degradation of plastics, which are notoriously resistant to current disposal methods.
“By harnessing these unique reactions, we can explore new pathways for transforming environmental pollutants into valuable, reusable chemicals, contributing to the development of a more sustainable and circular economy,” said Yuebing Zheng, a professor at the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering and a key leader of the project.
The study, recently published in Nature Communications, includes contributions from researchers at the University of California, Berkeley; Tohoku University in Japan; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Baylor University; and The Pennsylvania State University.
Plastic pollution has escalated into a severe global environmental crisis, with millions of tons of plastic waste accumulating in landfills and oceans annually. Traditional methods of plastic degradation are often energy-intensive, harmful to the environment, and inefficient. The new laser-based technique offers a promising alternative, potentially enabling efficient recycling technologies to mitigate pollution.
The researchers utilized low-power light to disrupt the chemical bonds in plastics, transforming them into luminescent carbon dots. These carbon-based nanomaterials are highly sought after for their diverse applications, including potential use as memory storage devices in next-generation computing.
“It’s exciting to potentially take plastic that on its own may never break down and turn it into something useful for many different industries,” remarked Jingang Li, a postdoctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, who initiated this research at UT.
The specific reaction, called C-H activation, involves selectively breaking carbon-hydrogen bonds in an organic molecule and forming new chemical bonds. In this study, two-dimensional materials catalyzed the reaction, resulting in the hydrogen molecules becoming gas and allowing carbon molecules to bond and form the information-storing dots.
Further research and development are necessary to optimize and scale up the light-driven C-H activation process for industrial applications. The technique can be applied to various long-chain organic compounds, including polyethene and surfactants commonly used in nanomaterial systems.