Scientists discover new way to convert plastic into soap; here's how

Researchers have discovered a method for converting used plastic by transforming it into soap.

Some 200 million tonnes of plastic waste is produced in the world annually, yet a staggering 80 per cent of this waste finds its way to landfills, with a little fraction – less than 10 per cent – recycled.

Plastics are chemically similar to fatty acids, a key component in soap production. Nevertheless, the size was a problem molecularly, as the plastics are very large about 3,000 atoms long, whereas fatty acids are much smaller.

'The Christmas Magic'

The solution was found by Guoliang Liu, an assistant professor of chemistry at Virginia Tech.The concept, published in the journal Science, revolves around the conversion of polyethene into fatty acids and, subsequently, into soap. He said that the solution came unusually.

"It was Christmas. I was watching the fireplace."

Liu elaborated on this, explaining thatburning plastic would work the same way.

"Firewood is mostly made of polymers such as cellulose. The combustion of firewood breaks these polymers into short chains, and then into small gaseous molecules before full oxidation to carbon dioxide. If we similarly break down the synthetic polyethylene molecules but stop the process before they break all the way down to small gaseous molecules, then we should obtain short-chain, polyethylene-like molecules."

The research team built an oven-like reactor to be used to burn plastic.

The temperature at the bottom was kept hot to break up the polymer chains, while the top was cool enough to stop them from breaking down too far.

They then collected the residue and found that the product they had created is a type of wax, a short-chain polyethene, and then converted the wax into soap.

(With inputs from agencies)

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