Researchers have discovered a way to transform discarded plastic into the primary ingredients in soap. Scientists hope that this method could one day be used to mitigate plastic waste.
Researchers from Virginia Tech College of Science released a study on August 10 detailing how they had succeeded in “upcycling” plastics into surfactants.
Surfactants are a primary component in different soaps and detergents.
Guoliang Liu, a chemist at the university, and his colleagues managed to transform the plastic materials by heating them in a specially-made oven. The waste plastic was made into a wax composed of short carbon chains. Combining this wax with an alkaline solution and oxygen atoms transformed the substance into surfactants.
Later combining the newly formed substance with aromas and dye effectively made the product into the world’s first soap made from plastic.
“Our research demonstrates a new route for plastic upcycling without using novel catalysts or complex procedures. In this work, we have shown the potential of a tandem strategy for plastic recycling,” said Zhen Xu, lead author of the paper, according to a press release from Virginia Tech.
“This will enlighten people to develop more creative designs of upcycling procedures in the future,” she suggested
Scientists claim that the method works on the two most common forms of plastic, polyethylene and polypropylene. Despite the promise presented by the research, the products developed through the process must still be valuable enough to cover the cost of development if they are to be used on a larger scale.
Xu said that he hoped that the research would aid in mitigating pollution.
“It should be realized that plastic pollution is a global challenge rather than a problem of a few mainstream countries,” said Xu, per the press release. “Compared to a sophisticated process and complex catalyst or reagent, a simple process may be more accessible to many other countries worldwide.”
Soap is just one way being explored to fight the war against plastic pollution.
Dr. Sahadat Hossain, director of the University of Texas at Arlington Solid Waste Institute for Sustainability, has been working on methods to use plastic waste products as a practical method to repair roads, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
