2 IIT alumni develop sustainable fuel from ‘thin air’, plastic waste

Two UK researchers, who are alumni of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), have developed a new method to transform carbon dioxide (CO2) captured from industrial processes — or even directly from the air — to clean, sustainable fuels, using just the energy from the sun.

The researchers currently working at the Department of Chemistry in the University of Cambridge, UK, developed a solar-powered reactor that converts captured CO2 and plastic waste into sustainable fuels and other valuable chemical products.

In tests, CO2 was converted into syngas — a key building block for sustainable liquid fuels –, and plastic bottles were converted into glycolic acid, which is widely used in the cosmetics industry.