(Radio Iowa) – Research at the Iowa State University Ames Lab is working to turn waste plastic into fuel and other chemicals. Aaron Sadow is leading the research to find a way to keep plastics out of landfills. “So when we just throw out our plastic waste we’re throwing out about one-point-three (1.3) billion barrels of oil every year the equivalent of that amount,” he says. Sadow says plastics have been an issue for 40 years and they may have found a way to successfully solve the problem. “The plastic waste goes through a catalyst and becomes chemicals, recyclable plastics that don’t end up in landfills, or fuels,” he says. “There’s a need for sustainable aviation fuel and plastic waste could provide that.” He says it’s been a scientific mystery to unlock how to reuse some plastics.

“When it’s formulated, it becomes basically non recyclable. And that’s the reason for the science challenge, as well as the practical challenge associated with recycling,” Sadow says. “So what we’re trying to do is break the chemical bonds and make new chemicals, new materials that address this waste problem.” They received nearly 13 million dollars in an Energy Frontier Research Center grant from the U-S Department of Energy to do the research. Sadow says the goal is to also create a monetary incentive for people to recycle plastic. “The process we’ve developed turns into a one step system that could be located at a materials recovery research center, at a landfill that collects waste and makes diesel, and this could be going to our farms to our power plants,” he says.

Sadow says the diesel they create would be comparable in cost to the diesel now in use and will be cleaner burning. “Normal diesel is about 15 P-P-M, parts per million sulfur and we’re under point one,” he says. Sadow says the diesel from recycled plastic can also be blended with biodiesel. He says they are talking with the city of Ames to look at testing out the fuel created from plastic Sadow made his comments during a presentation to the Board of Regents.