uladzimirzuyeu | stock.adobe.com
Technology startup Plastic 2 Green Inc., Loveland, Colorado, says it has made a “promising breakthrough” in converting plastic scrap into carbon products and carbon-free fuels.
The company says it has produced nitrogen-doped graphene from plastic scrap in a laboratory, a milestone tested and confirmed through advanced transmission electron microscopy at Colorado State University, with upcoming independent evaluation of its Raman Spectroscopy data from the Technical University of Munich.
“We’re proving that waste plastic, one of the world’s worst pollutants, can become one of its most valuable materials,” Plastic 2 Green CEO Ed VanDyne says.
The company claims its patent-pending, plasma-based technology can convert all types of unsorted and contaminated plastic scrap into products such as green ammonia, clean hydrogen, carbon black and nitrogen-doped graphene (NDG). Among its many uses in sensors, batteries and catalysts, NDG is expected to be widely used in supercapacitors because of its increased charge storage capacity and cycling stability, according to Plastic 2 Green.
The company says its first customer now has issued a purchase order for sample quantities and has funded a research team at the University of Notre Dame to do further analysis to confirm its performance in next-generation supercapacitors. The startup says it has raised $500,000 of its $1 million preseed SAFE Note round, supporting continued development of its proof-of-process laboratory.