{"id":231587,"date":"2026-02-18T14:23:20","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:23:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/new-electrolyzer-turns-plastic-waste-syngas-into-ethylene-with-less-energy"},"modified":"2026-02-18T14:23:20","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T20:23:20","slug":"new-electrolyzer-turns-plastic-waste-syngas-into-ethylene-with-less-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/02\/new-electrolyzer-turns-plastic-waste-syngas-into-ethylene-with-less-energy","title":{"rendered":"New electrolyzer turns plastic-waste syngas into ethylene with less energy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-electrolyzer-turns-plastic-waste-syngas-into-ethylene-with-less-energy.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>For every ton of ethylene created, one ton of carbon dioxide is produced. With more than 300 million tons of ethylene produced each year, the production system has a huge carbon footprint that scientists and engineers are eager to reduce and eventually eliminate. A new device developed in Ted Sargent\u2019s lab at Northwestern takes a step toward breaking that cycle.<\/p>\n<p>The device, an electrolyzer, has three innovations. It uses electricity to create ethylene from syngas, a waste gas produced from plastic. It uses a novel material to help catalyze the reaction. And it does so in an efficient way, reducing the overall energy needed for the system.<\/p>\n<p>The results, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41560-026-01990-2\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> Feb. 17 in <i>Nature Energy<\/i>, can be used with renewable energy sources to help pave the way for a greener ethylene supply chain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For every ton of ethylene created, one ton of carbon dioxide is produced. With more than 300 million tons of ethylene produced each year, the production system has a huge carbon footprint that scientists and engineers are eager to reduce and eventually eliminate. A new device developed in Ted Sargent\u2019s lab at Northwestern takes a [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1497,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-231587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-sustainability"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231587\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}