Upcycling Of Waste Plastics For The Mass Production Of Carbon Nano Materials Along With The Production Of Value Added Fuels: A Novel Approach For The Rejuvenation And Conservation Of Ecology In India
About the Practice
The plastic waste management has become a worldwide problem due to its non-biodegradable nature. The non-biodegradable nature of the plastic waste has created the challenge in front of the scientific community. Various attempts have been made by the scientific community in order to confront it. Fortunately the high carbon content present in plastic waste gives us an opportunity to synthesize and produce cost-effective, environmentally-friendly, and self-sustaining CNMs, High value-added fuel and additives for the concrete mixture to increase the quality of concrete, which may later be exploited for many other applications ranging from energy conversion and storage, biomedical applications such as drug discovery and delivery and many more. The innovation is going to deal with the complete waste management, which has not yet been proposed as all the parts of waste plastic will consume in the synthesis of various significant material such as carbon nanomaterials, value-added fuels and additives for concrete mixture which not only supports the management of waste plastic but will also leaves significant impression in front of scientific community at National/International level that how potentially we can manage the hazardous waste into its useful conversion without affecting the environmental issues. An outcome of the project is surely going to benefit a larger section of academia and society. This will help various laboratories working in the field of nanomaterials, in addition, it will give new technical inputs to the construction as an industry which is contributing six to nine percent of the gross domestic product of developed countries. A new revolutionary cost-effective technique will be generated to synthesize carbon nanomaterials, value-added fuel and additives for the concrete mixture. Surely it will provide waste management technologies to manage the hazardous waste into its useful conversion. It will also beneficial for the local community of the Himalayan region as it includes the awareness programs, job opportunities, environmental assessment, covers energy demand at local level both for electricity by making organic solar cells as well as fuel purpose. It can potentially helps for the development of border road by introducing additives made from plastic to increase the life and durability of the concrete mixture to make it highly accessible for all the weathers. As it includes a systematic approach towards the Awareness programs about the hazardous effects of plastic substances in the environment, health, and ecosystem, thus is capable to stop the further uncontrollable health issues such as cancer, asthma, etc. due to the dangerous gas such as DIOXIN releasing during the open burning of plastic. At the industrial level, data generated from the project work surely improve the ecology of the project site. Industries like SABIC, SAMSUNG, ONGC, IOC will surely get benefitted by the project. Also the theme of the innovation gives preference to the waste plastic management by their successful conversion on carbon nanomaterial and other useful products with greener technologies which are not only capable to give balance in the ecosystem by providing alternative sources of energy and storage, but also reduces forest degradation, water pollution, save lands from plastic littering, floods, by conducting awareness programs organized by organization during the project .By establishing SWAYMBHU-WRM-2021 machine (WRM-waste recycling machine) often at the very interior area of the region, we can produce open research centers , which not only provide jobs to their local peoples but can also provide electricity by utilizing carbon nanomaterial obtained from the plastic thus can be utilized to make transparent organic solar cell which can work as a polyhouse-window at daytime for the photosynthesis for plants and give electricity at night. Thus the entire theme of the work gives balance to the ecosystem.
Detail:
If there is one type of municipal solid waste that has become ubiquitous in India and most developing countries and largely seen along the shores and waterways of many developed countries, it is the plastic waste. Much of it is not recycled, and ends up in landfills or as litter on land, in waterways and the ocean. While the estimate of eight million tons of plastic being dumped into the oceans by 192 coastal countries in 2010 may appear staggeringly high, in reality, the quantity would be many times more. Besides estimating the total quantity, a paper published recently in the journal Science has identified the top 20 countries that have dumped the most plastic waste into the oceans. At the twelfth position, India is one of the worst performers. It has dumped up to 0.24 million tons of plastic into the ocean every year; the amount of mismanaged plastic waste per year is 0.6 million tons (Hindu.com). Alarmingly, an unknown quantity of degraded plastic in the form of particles enters the food chain. The damage from the scattered plastic bags was not limited to the marine scenery but scattered plastic bags also fill the ditches during the rainy season and can trigger floods in the Himalayan region. On the other hand, the manufacturing of plastic not only shows hazardous effects on the ecosystem but also depicts energy crises with the consumption of fossil fuels. In the case of energy consumption, a single bag made from high-density polythene(HDPE) needs about 48 mega joules (MJ) of energy for the production and its transportation to a market (Nolan et al. 2002).Comparatively a gallon of gasoline contains 35 MJ. So one gallon of gasoline is equivalent to 73 plastic bags in terms of energy and 100 billion of plastic bags are energy wise is the same as 1,369 gallons of gasoline. But the process is still irreversible especially in India, which hardly upcycles plastic waste, has its task cut out. So what we need to make a strategic plan regarding the solid waste management which potentially control the waste generated by unusual habits of humankind with the addition of value-added recovery of these waste to get “Waste to Wealth”. Thus this innovation is dedicated to the Upcycling of waste plastic to get high value-added products along with the protection of the environment. This innovation leads us to the synthesis of graphene from waste plastics, along with the production of value-added fuels and additives for concrete mixture in step process by using a well-developed waste recycling machine named as “SWAYAMBHU-WRM-2021”. The machine is capable of upcycles 100 kg of plastics per day to produce nearly 12-15% fine quality carbon nanomaterials, 35-45% value-added fuels and 10-20% additives for the concrete mixture. Thus, the process reveals the potential of Indian technology in front of the international scientific community. This is the first attempt toward complete utilization of waste plastic with the lower cost. The project will surely help the various research laboratories, industries of the nation for the synthesis of carbon Nanomaterials, high value-added fuel and anti-skidding additives for the concrete mixture and efficient materials for water purification with effectively lower cost. Along with this it will also help in decreasing dependency on the traditional fossil fuel as the method promises to deliver low-cost carbon nanomaterials having various greener applications for the energy and storage such as Organic solar cell (device converting solar energy into electrical energy), Supercapacitor (Device for storage of charge), high value-added fuel which can help to fight with the shortage of fossil fuel.
About the Innovator
Address: Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Centre, Department of Chemistry, DSB Campus, Kumaun University, Nainital, Uttarakhand, India
City: Nainital
State: Uttarakhand
PIN Code 263001
Email: sahjisandeep07@gmail.com
Contact No: +91-7310693529, +91-
Practice Details
Link: The innovation of Upcycling of Waste Plastics is based on the management of waste plastics which can give a strong data for the environmental assessment in future. The theme of the innovation will also cover various aspects such as-
• It also includes the promotion of micro-entrepreneurship and greener technologies by the application of products obtained from the waste plastic, for e.g. the carbon nanomaterial such as Graphene is used to make the Organic Solar cell, which can promote the greener technologies at the Himalayan region to provide electricity. The other products such as high value-added fuel from the waste plastic can overcome the problem of fossil fuel, thus reduces both deforestation and energy crises.
• It partially includes the development of border road by introducing additives made from plastic to increase the life and durability of the concrete mixture to make it highly accessible for all the weathers.
• It also includes Supplementary livelihood options in future for rural communities, as the innovation is based on the upcycling of waste plastic by a waste recycle machine SWAYMBHU-WRM-2021, which is also capable to generate energy by waste plastic, which is utilized to run the system. In future, by a well-defined exit strategy, small open research centres can be generated even at the interior part of the Himalayan region, which can provide not only energy but also offer them with self-sustaining jobs by collecting and upcycling of waste plastic.
• It also includes a systematic approach towards the Awareness programs about the hazardous effects of the plastic substance in environment, health, and ecosystem.
Problem Scale: Worldwide
News Link 5: