{"id":2087,"date":"2009-12-14T17:15:48","date_gmt":"2009-12-14T17:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/got-too-many-plastic-bags-recycle-them-into-nanotubes-discoblog\/"},"modified":"2009-12-14T17:15:48","modified_gmt":"2009-12-14T17:15:48","slug":"got-too-many-plastic-bags-recycle-them-into-nanotubes-discoblog","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/astronomy\/got-too-many-plastic-bags-recycle-them-into-nanotubes-discoblog.php","title":{"rendered":"Got Too Many Plastic Bags? Recycle Them Into Nanotubes | Discoblog"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"plastic-bag-waste-web\"An Argonne National Laboratory<\/a> scientist thinks he has developed a better way to recycle a ubiquitous scourge of the environment—the plastic bag.<\/p>

the plastic bag<\/div>

New Scientist<\/a> <\/em>reports:<\/p>

Waste plastic from “throwaway” carrier bags can be readily converted into carbon nanotubes. The chemist who developed the technique has even used the nanotubes to make lithium-ion batteries.<\/p>

This is called “upcycling” – converting a waste product into something more valuable. Finding ways to upcycle waste could encourage more recycling…<\/p><\/blockquote>

The process isn’t cheap, however. It involves an expensive catalyst in cobalt acetate, which is not easily recovered, to convert the high or low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE) into carbon nanotubes. But if the nanotubes are then used to make lithium-ion or lithium-air batteries, that might overcome this problem, since these batteries are already recycled at the end of their use to recover cobalt.<\/p>

Getting the bags to a recycling facility in the first place may be a hurdle as well. As the picture above shows, asking the public to put forth any effort sometimes seems to be asking too much.<\/p>

Related Content:
80beats: How to Make a Battery Out of Office Paper & Nanotubes<\/a>
DISCOVER: The World’s Largest Garbage Dump: The Great Pacific Garbage Patch<\/a>
Discoblog: Prison for Plastic? Indian City Initiates Harsh Penalties for Using Plastic Bags<\/a>
Discoblog: It’s In the Bag! Teenager Wins Science Fair, Solves Massive Environmental Problem<\/a>
DISCOVER: 9 Ways Carbon Nanotubes Just Might Rock the World<\/a><\/p>

Image: flickr \/ <\/em>Sam Felder<\/em><\/a><\/p>

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Argonne National Laboratory scientist thinks he has developed a better way to recycle a ubiquitous scourge of the environment—the plastic bag.the plastic bagNew Scientist reports:Waste plastic from “throwaway” carrier bags can be readily converted into carbon nanotubes. The chemist who … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"limit_modified_date":"","last_modified_date":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy"],"modified_by":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2087"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2087\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.euvolution.com\/futurist-transhuman-news-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}