The Development of Hetero structured Nanofibrous Microrobot for Upcycling of Microplastics Integrated with Hydrogen Evolution: From Trash to Treasure

Description du projet

La transformation des déchets pour une production d’H2 carburant propre

Les plastiques, qui font partie intégrante de la civilisation moderne, posent aujourd'hui un problème: plus de 40 % des 8 milliards de tonnes produites se transforment en polluants environnementaux persistants. Les microplastiques et les nanoplastiques, sous-produits des déchets plastiques, qui persistent pendant de très longues périodes, aggravent le problème. Les efforts scientifiques visant à remédier aux déchets microplastiques se sont heurtés à des lacunes de connaissances, appelant une nouvelle approche. Dans ce contexte, le projet PlastiFuel, financé par l'UE, portera ses efforts sur le recyclage chimique. Plus précisément, il se propose de convertir les microplastiques en un précieux hydrogène carburant par photo-reformage, apportant ainsi une solution transformatrice à l’urgent défi planétaire de la pollution plastique. Il fera appel à des nanomatériaux hétérogènes, en particulier des architectures de nanofibres de carbone 3D autopropulsées. Cette approche devrait apporter des avantages économiques et constituer une formidable avancée vers une économie exempte de pollution.

Objectif

Plastics are playing indispensable parts in the modern civilization. Given its beneficial characteristics, it would be hard to envisage a world without plastics. However, a more sustainable method to manage plastics after usage is critically needed in the present scenario. So far wide variety of plastics have been produced over 8 billion tons, out of which about 40% have been superfluous. The plastic waste ends up as a litter, in the environment will become small fragments as microplastics (MiP)/ Nanoplastics (NiP) and only degrade slowly in natural environments and persist over years. In past decades, scientific community has investigated the efficient remediation technologies towards MiP waste. However, contemplating the MiP waste reforming to value added material, still has profound knowledge gaps. The chemical upcycling suggests a promising approach to deal with the challenges triggered by plastic wastes. Hydrogen could become an excellent energy carrier to appease the energy demand of humankind as a sustainable future alternative energy economy. The conversion of MiP into value added hydrogen fuel by photo-reforming is a newly emerging field with enormous economic potential. To better combatting the global challenges of MiP contamination, heterogenous nanomaterials play vital role due its surface functionality. The present proposed work underlines the on-site upgrading of MiP with self-propelled heterostructured 3D carbon nanofibrous based architectures (carbon-MXene/Fe-Mo2N) will be used for hydrogen evolution by photo-electrocatalytic method. These present approaches help to demonstrate ‘trash to treasure’ generation of clean H2 fuel on plastic upcycling to overcome the economical hurdle and building a pollution free economy. It helps inspiring more electrocatalytic process based fuel production in future energy.