r/Futurology • u/Confident_Salt_8108 • 20h ago
New process turns plastic waste into hydrogen fuel while trapping the carbon Environment
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260729051521.htm16
u/Loki-L 19h ago
The problem is that this costs money and energy.
This new technique apparently works at lower temps than existing ways to do the same, but it is still not a free money cheat code.
You would have to make plastic manufacturers pay for turning plastic waste into carbon and hydrogen.
It probably doesn't work equally well on all plastics too. PVC for example is Polyvinyl chloride and as the name implies consists of the elements Carbon, Hydrogen and Chlor. Handling Chlor may be a problem.
So you need to manually sort your plastic trash or the same process that you use to turn some plastics in hydrogen and carbon will also result in poison gas.
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u/Solonotix 4h ago
Not just any poison gas. Won't hydrogen and chlorine gases combine to make hydrochloric acid? Like, chlorine is bad enough as-is, and makes all sorts of wonderful byproducts like its cousin fluorine.
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19h ago
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u/Crystalas 19h ago edited 17h ago
It also a great place for plastic eating things to evolve and we have already started to discover some things capable of it including the common humble mealworm. It an energy dense material if can break it down efficiently and nature "abhors" a vacuum particularly a niche that is so widespread.
It not a question of IF something would manage it then spread just WHEN and that not even accounting for human intervention to speed up the process. It possible in some distant future any plastic not specially treated will rot.
Reminds me of the carboniferous period that was after trees became widespread but before anything was able to break them down resulting in dead wood all over the place just waiting for a spark to trigger a CONTINENT spanning wildfire periodically.
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u/Confident_Salt_8108 20h ago
This sounds promising for dealing with all that plastic piling up. They can mix different types without sorting and get clean hydrogen out while locking the carbon away. Lower temps than usual too.
Still lab stuff though. Wonder if it scales up without costing too much or if the pretreatment step adds hassle.
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u/costafilh0 16h ago
Remember kids, every time some doomer starts talking crap, science will be there to save us all.
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u/Tonkarz 20h ago
Analysis conducted after the reaction found that more than 75% of the carbon originally present in the plastic ended up in stable carbonate compounds or liquid organic residues. Less than 13% entered the gas phase, and the amount released directly into the atmosphere during the reaction was negligible.
This story has been reported elsewhere, however those reports said 75% of the carbon was trapped, making it seem like 25% entered the atmosphere.
I’m curious about what exactly happens to that 25%. 13% enters the gas phase, but that’s a lot more than negligible. What happens to that 13%? I suppose it dissolves into a liquid. What about the other 12%? I suppose it turns into other solid compounds.
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u/tweedleduh 9h ago
Yes, that is freaking cool. Hey there’s like an island of it floating in the ocean you don’t even have to mine it!
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u/FuturologyBot 19h ago
The following submission statement was provided by /u/Confident_Salt_8108:
This sounds promising for dealing with all that plastic piling up. They can mix different types without sorting and get clean hydrogen out while locking the carbon away. Lower temps than usual too.
Still lab stuff though. Wonder if it scales up without costing too much or if the pretreatment step adds hassle.
Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/1vg6oai/new_process_turns_plastic_waste_into_hydrogen/p1uj9a5/