While most sixteen year olds around the world are obsessing about what their peeps did or did not post on their Facebook walls, Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad from Egypt found a way to convert plastic waste into biofuel. Even though the idea she proposes is not breakthrough in the slightest, itâs her proposal of never heard before catalyst that makes her idea so unique, genuine and groundbreaking. According to Azzaâs proposal, plastic polymers found in general plastic waste and plastic bottles can be turned into biofuel feedstock by using aluminosilicate, a high-yield catalyst.
Azza says that her research shows that the catalyst breaks down solid plastic waste into gases like ethane, propane and methane that can further converted into ethanol, hydrocarbon gasses and cracked naptha. At the moment, Egypt consumes an average of one million tons of plastic products per years a majority of which ends up as plastic waste. If Azzaâs proposal could be put into practice, this waste can be converted into biofuel worth $78 million each year using the cheap catalyst.
Azza is yet to patent the proposal though she is on her way to get the patents on her idea as soon as possible. Her idea has also earned her a lot of interest from the Egyptian Petroleum Research Institute and her proposal has already won her the European Fusion Development Agreement award. If Azzaâs proposal works like itâs supposed to, plastic waste would no longer end in landfills and oceans and its useful life would be greatly enhanced as well.
Via: Inhabitat
