Turn PET Bottle into PET Aerogel

                                                                                                                   By Florence Huang

When we are outside, we can get bottled water or any other drink easily from a convenience store. After we finish the beverage, we recycle the bottle. If we could gather all the recycled bottles from around the world, how many plastic bottles would we get? It might be millions and billions of them. If we can make good use of such a large amount of plastic bottles, we might do more than saving our earth. We may also make our lives better.

Researchers from National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a technology that make the world’s first polyethylene terephthalate (PET) aerogels from recycled plastic. The research team of NUS spent two years developing a simple, cost-effective, and green method that can turn PET bottles into a piece of A4-sized PET aerogel.

According to the researchers, the PET aerogel is a soft, flexible, durable, and extremely light material; while working with certain chemicals, it shows even more features that serves various purposes: great thermal insulation, strong absorbing capacity, only to name a few. These features can be applied to heat or sound insulation in buildings and to oil-spill cleaning. It also makes for excellent material for lightweight coats for firefighters. When it is made into carbon-dioxide absorption mask, it helps firefighters during fire rescue. They no longer need to wear the heavy masks they used to wear.

The researchers promised sustainable work and attempts to find out more features of the PET aerogel, to seek more possibilities of its application, and to develop products based on their finds.

Plastic is toxic and non-biodegradable. It means that the plastic we used mostly end up deep in the sea or buried under ground. This will cause serious environmental problem. If the researchers find out more means of its application in the future, the aerogel technology may well encourage people to recycle plastic bottles and other plastic products. Most important of all, such recycling when comes true can help us reduce the effect of plastic pollution.