Research to rid the world of plastic waste have been conducted regularly. Someone offers recycling, someone offers to move to a completely new kind of plastic, but researchers from the National University of Singapore want to use a completely different approach. From the usual plastic bottles and other wastes they learned to make particular aerogels, which can find a lot of useful applications in various fields.
As you know, the basis of plastic materials is polyethylene terephthalate (abbreviated PET). Exploring its properties, a group of scientists led by Professor Hai Minh Duong and Professor Nhan Phan-Thanom from the National University of Singapore, has developed a technology for recycling PET in the aerogel.
“Waste plastic bottles are one of the most common types of waste on the Ground and have harmful effects on the environment. Our team has developed a simple and cost effective method to convert waste plastic bottles in plastic aerogels for many interesting applications. For example, one plastic bottle can be recycled in the aerogel sheet of A4.”
A team of scientists who worked on the project
Development of aerogel took more than 2 years and at the moment the test is still ongoing, and the authors are not ready to disclose the details of production, but the series of tests shows that the material is quite versatile.
“Adding to the composition of the aerogel of different impurities, we can obtain different properties. Adding the methyl group, we can give the aerogel properties of a sorbent that will work several times better than the existing ones. It is suitable for cleaning water from oil. Or here’s another example: the other compounds aerogel teplosetevaya and high refractory properties. And that means they can cover the walls of houses and clothes firefighters for fire protection or to create ultra-lightweight but warm lining for the jackets. All this and more we can make from plastic waste!”
This and other news you can discuss in our chat in Telegram.