A pair of environmental recognition programs have joined together to honor Illinois organizations that have accomplished significant achievements in protecting the environment and helping to sustain the future. Winners of the Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards and the Illinois Campus Sustainability Compact Awards Program were presented during a luncheon in Oak Brook, IL. Continue reading “2012 Illinois Governor’s Sustainability Awards”
Grand Opening of the Indoor Climate Research & Training Facility
The new Indoor Climate Research & Training (ICRT) program training facility was completed earlier this month and ISTC hosted an invitation only Grand Opening Ceremony. Dr. Manohar Kulkarni (ISTC Director) and Paul Francisco (Research Engineer and Program Leader for ICRT) kicked of the ceremony with welcoming remarks and short history of the ICRT program. Special guest Lt. Governor Sheila Simon was given the honor of cutting the ribbon for the official opening of the training facility. Continue reading “Grand Opening of the Indoor Climate Research & Training Facility”
Science & Technology at the Market
This fall the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) at the University of Illinois will be presenting information about several of its research and outreach projects at Urbana’s Market at the Square. Topics include:
• September 22 – Waste Biomass Projects: Turning waste into energy. Come learn how ISTC researchers, Dr. Junhua Jiang (Senior Research Engineer), uses biochar – a black carbon-rich solid made from biomass – in supercapacitors. Dr. B.K. Sharma (Senior Research Engineer) and Joe Pickowitz (Environmental Engineer) will also present how they turn everyday household and restaurant waste into bio-oils/bio-lubricants and biodiesel.
• September 29 – PPCPs in the Environment: More and more we hear of various chemicals being found in our streams and rivers. ISTC researcher, Dr. Wei Zheng (Senior Research Chemist), will discuss his research on fate and transport Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs) in the environment.
• October 6 – Sustainable Electronics Initiative (SEI) and the Indoor Climate Research & Training: Have you ever wondered where your discarded electronics go or just how much electronic waste the US produces each year? Visit with Joy Scrogum (Emerging Technologies Resource Specialist) who can answer these questions and others about SEI, e-waste, and responsible recycling.
Your home is your sanctuary; a place where all the worries of the world go away. Learn with Bill Rose (Senior Research Architect) and the ICRT program about way to improve your sanctuary’s performance in the areas of indoor air quality, roofing materials and attic ventilation, freezing pipe conditions, thermal performance at wall-ceiling junctions, and more.
• October 20 – Mud to Parks: Have you ever seen abandoned industrial areas that are eye sores in communities? Come learn how ISTC’s John Marlin (Research Affiliate) helped to discover how river sediments can be used to turn old industrial sites into parks.
• October 27 – Water Use and Reuse: Ever wondered how your drinking water gets cleaned? Learn how a couple of ISTC researchers, Dr. Kishore Rajagopalan (Associate Director for Applied Research) and Eric Duitsman (Chemist), clean a variety of liquid wastes with reverse osmosis membrane technology.
• November 3 – Waste to Oil: Dr. B.K. Sharma is back to demonstrate how he turns those pesky plastic grocery bags and other discarded plastic items into oil.
For more information on ISTC and/or these topics, please visit www.istc.illinois.edu or contact Elizabeth Luber at 217-333-7403 or eluber2@illinois.edu or Nancy Holm at 217-244-3330 or naholm@illinois.edu.
Scientists look to turning plastics into oil
On Midway Island in the Pacific Ocean, a mother albatross returns from a trip out to sea to feed her chick. Unfortunately, she has mistaken a few of the countless, small pieces of plastic in a floating island of garbage as an appropriate meal for her chick, which will die as a result.
With the negative impact of ocean-bound plastic waste, a trend of increasing gas prices, and an uncertain future in foreign oil importation, many people think changes are needed to protect both the environment and the economy.
As part of the effort to address these concerns, researchers at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center (ISTC) are looking into the process of converting carbon-rich plastic into oil that could kill—or in this case, save—two birds with one stone. They hope that a system of creating energy out of otherwise wasted plastic material will scale back the amount of plastic waste that ends up in landfills, the oceans and other waterways as well as decrease the nation’s dependence on foreign oil.
While plastic recycling programs are prevalent in many communities throughout the United States, much of the plastic that people dispose of is mixed in with regular garbage that is bound for a landfill.
Because the base material for most plastics is petroleum, it is possible to recover a percentage of that starting material with a series of chemical reactions.
“If we cannot recycle that completely then why should we waste that carbon?” asks ISTC Senior Research Scientist B.K. Sharma, who leads the ISTC’s plastics-to-oil project.
As a way to step in and prevent this plastic waste from going out the door and into an ocean or a landfill, Sharma and other researchers at ISTC are studying one way to add another “r” to the popular phrase “reduce, reuse, recycle.” They hope to add “recover”.
In order to recover that oil, plastic must be heated to a high temperature in the absence of oxygen in a process called pyrolysis. In one of the labs at ISTC, researchers load plastic into one of the two containers of a bench-top device, seal the top and begin to apply heat.
As the temperature increases, the molten plastic material breaks down into petroleum compounds, and a gas is produced. The gas rises to the top of the container, passes through a tube and empties into some water held by the device’s second container. Here, the gas vapors condense into liquid oil. The oil is less dense than the water, so it rises to the top and can be collected.
The process can convert three types of plastics into oil—polyethylene (recycling numbers 2 and 4), polypropylene (5) and polystyrene (6).
One of the most visible uses of polyethylene is in plastic grocery bags. Whether drifting down the street or caught in a tree, these bags seem to be everywhere, creating a widespread litter problem that is very difficult to clean up.
Plastic bottle caps and yogurt cups are examples of polypropylene that can be converted into oil. However, a silicone lining is often underneath the top of the cap to prevent leaks and must be removed prior to pyrolysis. Examples of polystyrene products include Styrofoam, disposable cups, plates, cutlery, and jewel CD cases.
Sharma’s work is part of a larger body of research into the pyrolysis process, which he and other ISTC researchers have been studying for over two years. They have been using waste biomass as the starting material in much of their research, and six months ago Sharma began looking into using plastic as a feedstock.
During small-scale lab runs, one gallon of oil is produced from eight lbs of plastic, Sharma said. Although only small amounts of plastic-derived oil are being produced by ISTC research, Sharma feels that if implemented on a larger scale, the resulting crude oil can be further refined into significant amounts of energy products, such as diesel, gasoline, and jet fuel.
ISTC is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.
For more information call:
B.K. Sharma, ISTC Senior Research Scientist
217-265-6810
Radio stations WDWS and WHMS interviewed Dr. Sharma about the project. The archive is available here: PLASTICSWRAP