A team from Houston's Rice University research laboratory have discovered that "heating plastic waste in the presence of potassium acetate produced particles with nanometer-scale pores that trap carbon dioxide molecules... These particles can be used to remove CO2 from flue gas streams, they reported."

Rice Chemist James Tour stated: “Point sources of CO2 emissions like power plant exhaust stacks can be fitted with this waste-plastic-derived material to remove enormous amounts of CO2 that would normally fill the atmosphere,” Tour said. “It is a great way to have one problem, plastic waste, address another problem, CO2 emissions.”

The Department of Energy (DE-F0031794) and Saudi Aramco supported the research.

Read the full article here: Treated plastic waste good at grabbing carbon dioxide

Research Paper: Plastic Waste Product Captures Carbon Dioxide in Nanometer Pores