Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 118, Issue 46, Pages -Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2107250118j1of8
Keywords
ocean plastic hydrothermal liquefaction exergy analysis Monte Carlo simulation
Categories
Funding
- US NSF as part of its 2026 Idea Machine initiative (Chemical, Bioengineering, Environ-mental, and Transport Systems, EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research Award) [2032621]
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program [2038257]
- Division Of Graduate Education
- Directorate for STEM Education [2038257] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Div Of Chem, Bioeng, Env, & Transp Sys
- Directorate For Engineering [2032621] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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The study examines the feasibility and potential impacts of using hydrothermal liquefaction of waste plastics as fuel for self-powered ocean cleanup. A thermodynamic analysis shows that this method has the energy potential to power both the cleanup process and the ship. The efficiency of cleanup operations is mainly dependent on the number of cleanup devices deployed in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Collecting and removing ocean plastics can mitigate their environmental impacts; however, ocean cleanup will be a complex and energy-intensive operation that has not been fully evaluated. This work examines the thermodynamic feasibility and subsequent implications of hydrothermally converting this waste into a fuel to enable self-powered cleanup. A comprehensive probabilistic exergy analysis demonstrates that hydrothermal liquefaction has potential to generate sufficient energy to power both the process and the ship performing the cleanup. Self-powered cleanup reduces the number of roundtrips to port of a waste-laden ship, eliminating the need for fossil fuel use for most plastic concentrations. Several cleanup scenarios are modeled for the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP), corresponding to 230 t to 11,500 t of plastic removed yearly; the range corresponds to uncertainty in the surface concentration of plastics in the GPGP. Estimated cleanup times depends mainly on the number of booms that can be deployed in the GPGP without sacrificing collection efficiency. Self-powered cleanup may be a viable approach for removal of plastics from the ocean, and gaps in our understanding of GPGP characteristics should be addressed to reduce uncertainty.
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