New type of plastic is a recycling dream
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
Both Aluminum and Glass are chopped up into tiny pieces, then melted into a "slag". The high temperature and chemistry allows both Aluminum and Glass to be 100% as effective as their originals. Its a true, infinite recycling process.
In contrast: Plastics and paper are "downcycled". High-quality printer paper gets turned into newspaper, then newspaper gets turned into cardboard. Each step, the recycled paper loses value due to contamination. In effect, paper and plastic cannot be "purified" like Aluminum or Glass.
IIRC, Type6 Plastic can only be turned into the foam for carpeting, for example. Some plastics, like HDPE or Type5 (Polypropylene) are highly-recyclable... but no plastic is as good as aluminum or glass. All plastics undergo some degree of "downcycling", where each recycling iteration loses value.
The article claims that this process makes these plastics infinitely reusable with no degradation in quality. It can also create plastics of different types from the same recycled materials. The process also requires less energy than traditional heat methods
Mainstream plastic, like PETE, HDPE, PP, PS, etc. etc. are all "downcycled", never truly "recycled". Just like paper, they lose value each time you send them to the recycling plant.
This new plastic has a mechanism that might work for true recycling. But... maybe not. Its one thing to prove a few tricks, but in practice... won't contaminants also be dissolved in that acid bath?
Ex: a lot of plastic containers are used in the food industry. Many (american)-Chinese food businesses use plastic for their delivery service. Can the food contamination be effectively cleansed off perfectly?
Because Aluminum / Glass definitely burns off any food contaminants as it reaches 1221F (Aluminum Melting point) or 2552F (Glass melting point). And IIRC, the various contaminants either float to the top, or sink to the bottom of the liquid-mix at that temperature. Which is why the purification process is relatively easy.