A scientist from the University of Plymouth has played a key role in new research which has developed a powerful, low-cost method for recycling used cooking oil and agricultural waste into biodiesel, and turning food scraps and plastic rubbish into high-value products.
The method, outlined in a study published in Nature Catalysis, harnesses a new type of ultra-efficient catalyst that can make low-carbon biodiesel and other valuable complex molecules out of diverse, impure raw materials.
Waste cooking oil currently has to go through an energy-intensive cleaning process to be used in biodiesel, because commercial production methods can only handle pure feedstocks with 1-2% contaminants.
The new catalyst - developed by an international team led by RMIT University in Australia - is so tough it can make biodiesel from low-grade ingredients, known as feedstock, containing up to 50% contaminants.
It is also so efficient it could double the productivity of manufacturing processes for transforming rubbish like food scraps, microplastics and old tyres into high-value chemical precursors used to make anything from medicines and fertilisers to biodegradable packaging.
Dr Lee Durndell, Lecturer in Chemistry at the University of Plymouth, is among the study's authors along with colleagues from RMIT, University College London, University of Manchester, University of Western Australia, Aston University, Durham University and University of Leeds.
He has spent many years working in the fields of nanomaterials and catalysis science, in particular looking at ways to develop next-generation materials and processes to tackle the grand challenges of society, including green chemicals and energy production.
For this study, he worked on the synthesis and optimisation of material properties, before characterising them using cutting edge electron microscopy analysis.
To make the new ultra-efficient catalyst, the team fabricated a micron-sized ceramic sponge (100 times thinner than a human hair) that is highly porous and contains different specialised active components.
Molecules initially enter the sponge through large pores, where they undergo a first chemical reaction, and then pass into smaller pores where they undergo a second reaction.
It's the first time a multi-functional catalyst has been developed that can perform several chemical reactions in sequence within a single catalyst particle, and it could be a game changer for the $US34 billion global catalyst market.
The sponge-like catalysts are cheap to manufacture, using no precious metals, and making low-carbon biodiesel from agricultural waste with these catalysts requires little more than a large container, some gentle heating and stirring.
While the new catalysts can be used immediately for biodiesel production, with further development they could be easily tailored to produce jet fuel from agricultural and forestry waste, old rubber tyres, and even algae.
The full study - A spatially orthogonal hierarchically porous acid-base catalyst for cascade and antagonistic reactions - is published in Nature Catalysis (DOI: 10.1038/s41929-020-00526-5).
