ORNL researchers convert polyethylene waste into gasoline and diesel fuel

September 21, 2026 at 06:28 PM1 min

This digest was compiled by AI from multiple sources — links to the originals are below.

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a process that converts polyethylene waste into gasoline- and diesel-like fuels using molten salts. The method achieved a gasoline yield of about 60 percent under relatively mild conditions. The team has applied for a patent and published findings in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Key Facts

The ORNL process uses molten salts containing aluminum chloride as both reaction medium and catalyst.
Experiments achieved a gasoline yield of about 60 percent under relatively mild reaction conditions.
The conversion occurred at a temperature below 200 degrees Celsius without noble-metal catalysts, organic solvents, or external hydrogen.
The findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society and a patent application has been filed.

Molten Salt Catalysis

The ORNL team combined polyethylene with molten salts containing aluminum chloride. These salts act simultaneously as the reaction medium and the catalyst driving the chemical conversion. Soft X-ray spectroscopy and nuclear magnetic resonance revealed that charged aluminum atoms bind with three other atoms, creating highly acidic catalytic sites. These sites attack the long molecular chains of polyethylene and split them into smaller hydrocarbon molecules.

Fuel Selectivity and Yield

Isotopic labeling and neutron scattering experiments showed that simpler polymer chains tended to produce gasoline-like compounds, while more complex chains generated diesel-like fuels. The experiments achieved a gasoline yield of about 60 percent under relatively mild reaction conditions. Liqi Qiu, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, performed most of the study's experiments in the ORNL laboratory of Sheng Dai. Zhenzhen Yang, an ORNL staff scientist, noted that the process used commercially available inorganic salts and did not require noble-metal catalysts, organic solvents, or external hydrogen.