{"id":760,"date":"2026-04-07T08:32:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T08:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/?p=760"},"modified":"2026-04-10T13:02:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T13:02:37","slug":"researchers-develop-solar-powered-reactor-to-break-down-plastic-waste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/07\/researchers-develop-solar-powered-reactor-to-break-down-plastic-waste\/","title":{"rendered":"Researchers develop solar-powered reactor to break down plastic waste"},"content":{"rendered":"<div data-beyondwords-marker=\"7571735b-dd2b-4456-aa72-1aad6518202b\" data-beyondwords-player=\"true\">\u00a0<\/div>\n<h4><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-612196 size-full lazyload\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" alt=\"Plastic waste\" width=\"860\" height=\"516\" data-src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.circularonline.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/dsc00111-dp.jpg?resize=860%2C516&amp;ssl=1\"><\/h4>\n<h4>Researchers have developed a solar-powered reactor that breaks down hard-to-recycle forms of plastic waste and converts it into hydrogen fuel and industrial chemicals.<\/h4>\n<p>The solar-powered reactor, developed by researchers at the University of Cambridge, could be a cheaper and more sustainable alternative to current chemical-based recycling methods.<\/p>\n<p>The reactor breaks down hard-to-recycle forms of plastic waste, such as drinks bottles, nylon textiles and polyurethane foams, using acid recovered from old car batteries, and converts it into hydrogen fuel and valuable industrial chemicals.<\/p>\n<p>To develop the method, the researchers engineered a photocatalyst that is robust enough to withstand the highly corrosive effects of car acid, which is normally neutralised and discarded.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe discovery was almost accidental,\u201d said Professor Erwin Reisner from Cambridge\u2019s Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry, who led the research.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe used to think acid was completely off limits in these solar-powered systems, because it would simply dissolve everything. But our catalyst developed didn\u2019t \u2013 and suddenly a whole new world of reactions opened up.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAcids have long been used to break plastics apart, but we never had a cheap and scalable photocatalyst that could withstand them,\u201d said lead author Kay Kwarteng, a PhD candidate in Reisner\u2019s research group, who developed the photocatalyst. \u201cOnce we solved that problem, the advantages of this type of system became obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The researchers say that their approach could complement conventional recycling by handling contaminated or mixed plastics that currently have no viable route to reuse.<\/p>\n<p>The team of researchers plan to commercialise this process with the support of Cambridge Enterprise, the University\u2019s innovation arm, and with a UKRI Impact Acceleration Account.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.circularonline.co.uk\/news\/researchers-develop-solar-powered-reactor-to-break-down-plastic-waste\/\">Researchers develop solar-powered reactor to break down plastic waste<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.circularonline.co.uk\">Circular Online<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Researchers have developed a solar-powered reactor that breaks down hard-to-recycle forms of plastic waste [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":762,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=760"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":761,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/760\/revisions\/761"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/businesssinglesmeet.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}