Turning Dirty Tinfoil into Biofuel Catalyst

A researcher at Queen’s University Belfast has discovered a way to convert dirty aluminium foil into a biofuel catalyst, which could help to solve global waste and energy problems.

In the UK, around 20,000 tonnes of aluminium foil packaging is wasted each year - enough to stretch to the moon and back. Most of this is landfilled or incinerated as it’s usually contaminated by grease and oils, which can damage recycling equipment.

Innovative

However, Ahmed Osman, an early career researcher from Queen’s University’s school of chemistry and chemical engineering, has worked with engineers at the university to create an innovative crystallisation method, which obtains 100 percent pure single crystals of aluminium salts from the contaminated foil. This is the starting material for the preparation of alumina catalyst.

Usually, to produce this type of alumina it would have to come from bauxite ore, which is mined in countries such as West Africa, the West Indies and Australia, causing huge environmental damage.

Promising

Osman, who took on the project under the University’s Sustainable Energy, Pioneering Research Programme, has created a solution which is much more environmentally-friendly, effective and cheaper than the commercial catalyst which is currently available on the market for the production of dimethyl ether - a biofuel which is regarded as the most promising of the 21st century.

Osman said making the catalyst from aluminium foil cost about £120/kg while the commercial alumina catalyst comes in at around £305/kg.

Its unique thermal, chemical and mechanical stability means it can also be used as an absorbent, in electronic device fabrication, as a cutting tool material or as an alternative for surgical material for implants.

The ground-breaking research has been published in Nature Scientific Reports.