16 Year Old Egyptian Girl Figures Out How to Turn Used Plastic Into $78 Million in BioFuels
MR.H
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Sixteen year old Azza Abdel Hamid Faiad from the Zahran Language School in Alexandria, Egypt just won the European Fusion Development Agreement award at the 23rd European Union Contest for Young Scientists. It involved 130 competitors from 37 countries. I think this is just a wonderful example in the importance of science and innovation. This is awesome for a multitude of reasons:
#1 – She found a positive use for used/leftover plastic which ends up in landfills and destroys the environment.
#2 – This addresses energy needs for the populace which is one of the largest costs for the average person.
#3 – This is just another example of what happens when we teach our kids science and math.
Green Prophet writes HERE:
"The idea of breaking down plastic polymers into fuel feedstocks, the bulk raw material used for producing biofuel , is not a new idea. But Faiad has found a high yield catalyst, aluminosilicate catalyst, that breaks down plastic waste producing gaseous products like methane, propane and ethane, which are then converted into ethanol to use as biofuel.
Faiad and her mentors propose using this discovery to exploit Egypt’s high plastic consumption, which is estimated to amount to one million tons per year, and make money from recycled plastic! She calculates that this technology “can provide an economically efficient method for production of hydrocarbon fuel namely: cracked naphtha of about 40,000 tons per year and hydrocarbon gases of about 138,000 tons per year equivalent to $78 million.”
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Brilliant, this has been a long time coming. I wonder if the method could be used to clean up the Pacific plastic mass.
