Hydrogen is viewed as a promising alternative to fossil fuel, but the methods used to make it either generate too much carbon dioxide or are too expensive. Rice University researchers have found a way to harvest hydrogen from plastic waste using a low-emissions method that could more than pay for itself.
  • Bernie EcclestonedOPEnglish
    8•1 year ago

    “We know that polyethylene, for example, is made of 86% carbon and 14% hydrogen, and we demonstrated that we are able to recover up to 68% of that atomic hydrogen as gas with a 94% purity,” Wyss said. "Developing the methods and expertise to characterize and quantify all the gases, including hydrogen, produced by this method was a difficult but rewarding process for me

    The hero we need

    • @TropicalDingdongEnglish
      7•1 year ago

      How much energy is used to do so and how much CO2 is released as part of the process?

      • Bernie EcclestonedOPEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        Doesn’t say, but if the electricity used is from renewables then it’s irrelevant, as it can potentially produce graphene at 5% of the current price

        Found this re co2

        Compared to commercial methods for carbon nanotube production that are being used right now, ours uses about 90% less energy and generates 90%-94% less carbon dioxide," Wyss said.

        https://phys.org/news/2023-02-joule-technique-efficiently-would-be-pollution.html

        If they’re making graphene and hydrogen then there can’t be much left over can there?

    • @[email protected]English
      6•1 year ago

      Not quite. This is greenwashing. the company funding the research is the world’s largest offshore drilling company. You got suckered or are trying to sucker in other people

      • Bernie EcclestonedOPEnglish
        -2•1 year ago

        Rice University are greenwashing?

        And so what if an energy company is paying for research into hydrogen and plastic waste upcycling?

        Edit. the United States Army Corps of Engineers gave them funding…

        • @[email protected]English
          4•1 year ago

          The army is one of the biggest ghg emitters in the world. Now I’m certain you’re just sharing propaganda. Why would a fossil fuel company push hydrogen technology? Because hydrogen production requires fossil fuels.

    • The_PeteEnglish
      3•1 year ago

      So, the get 8% of the bottle into a usable form . . . by turning plastic bottles into gases. So where does the rest of the bottle go? How much energy is used for that?

      • Bernie EcclestonedOPEnglish
        2•1 year ago

        Second paragraph…

        In this work, we converted waste plastics—including mixed waste plastics that don’t have to be sorted by type or washed—into high-yield hydrogen gas and high-value graphene