Molten Salts Turn Plastic Waste Into Gasoline Below 200 Degrees
Plastic Waste To Fuel
Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a surprisingly simple way to turn polyethylene — the plastic in shopping bags and cutting boards — into gasoline- and diesel-like fuels, using inexpensive aluminum-based molten salts that act as both reaction medium and catalyst.
The method converts the long polymer chains into smaller hydrocarbon molecules at temperatures below 200 degrees Celsius, a range comparable to a conventional kitchen oven. By contrast, earlier polyethylene-to-gasoline routes that rely on pyrolysis typically run at 450 to 500 degrees Celsius.
A Lower-Cost Path to Plastic Fuels
The team reports a gasoline yield of roughly 60 percent under relatively mild conditions, with no need for noble-metal catalysts, organic solvents, external hydrogen or a chemical initiator. Those omissions — plus the low temperature and a stable, scalable system — are what the researchers say could make the process radically easier to scale than prior approaches.
Using soft X-ray spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance, the team traced how charged aluminum atoms form highly acidic catalytic sites that attack the polymer chain. Simpler chains tended to produce gasoline-like compounds, while more complex chains generated diesel-like fuels. The findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, and a patent application has been filed.
What Still Stands in the Way
The main limitation is durability: the aluminum-based salts are hygroscopic, so absorbed moisture can reduce their stability. The team is now exploring ways to confine the molten salts — potentially with halogens or carbon-based materials — to make them easier to separate, process and keep stable.
If the method scales beyond the laboratory, the researchers say it could strengthen domestic energy security and give industry a new route to transportation fuels from consumer plastic waste.
Learn More About Plastic Pyrolysis and Fuel Recovery
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Every advance in turning plastic waste into fuel reinforces the commercial case for plastic pyrolysis — the proven, industrial-scale route Klean Industries has engineered for decades. Klean builds the plastic-pyrolysis plants that convert polymer waste into pyrolysis oil and recovered carbon black, with the feasibility studies and turn-key delivery to take a project from feedstock to offtake.
Klean’s Key Advantages:
- ✅ Thirty-plus years engineering commercial tire and plastic pyrolysis plants.
- ✅ 3 recovered carbon black (rCB) plants built in India over the past 2 years.
- ✅ Signed LOI to deliver five more rCB plants in India.
- ✅ KBR added Klean’s proprietary TyreNova tire-pyrolysis technology to its IP portfolio.
- ✅ KleanLoop blockchain provides end-to-end feedstock traceability.
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