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Virginia Tech Chemists Convert Hard-to-Recycle PVC Plastic Into Engine Oil

Reported bySciTechDaily ↗·Sourced by Goodlede

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Chemist Guoliang Liu's lab at Virginia Tech developed a process that converts polyvinyl chloride (PVC)—one of the world's most widely used but difficult-to-recycle plastics—into polyalphaolefin, a major component of synthetic engine oil. The work, published August 5, 2026, in Nature, uses a simple procedure: PVC is placed in a solvent with aluminum trichloride and alpha-olefins, heated to 158 degrees Fahrenheit for three hours, yielding a usable lubricant.

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