Turning Plastic Waste into Carbon-Capture Material

Technique Could Address Pollution and Climate Change Simultaneously

The material BAETA is “upcycled” from PET plastic through a chemical process. Max Emil Madsen/University of Copenhagen

A team of chemists at the University of Copenhagen has developed a promising new method to transform common PET plastic waste—the plastic most frequently used in bottles, food packaging, and textiles—into a carbon-capture material with potential uses in industrial emissions control, offering a rare dual solution to plastic pollution and climate change.

The breakthrough centers on a chemical process called aminolysis, in which discarded polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is treated with 1,2-ethylenediamine at a mild temperature of about 60 °C for 24 hours. This simple, solvent- and catalyst-free reaction breaks down the long polymer chains and rebuilds them into a new compound named N¹,N⁴-bis(2-aminoethyl)terephthalamide (BAETA for short).

The BAETA product is a powdery, pelletizable material that has shown excellent carbon dioxide capture performance. Laboratory tests indicate it can selectively bind CO₂ from environments as varied as industrial flue gas and ambient air, even under humid conditions. BAETA’s chemical stability up to at least 250°C makes it suitable for deployment in high-temperature emissions streams, a key requirement for many industrial carbon-capture scenarios.

A Process Scalable and Regenerable

One of the most striking aspects of the research is its scalability: The process has already been demonstrated at the kilogram level using actual consumer PET waste, not just laboratory reagent plastics. This suggests that, with further development, the method could be applied to real waste streams rather than idealized samples.

Another advantage of BAETA is its regenerability. After binding CO₂, the material can be heated to about 150°C to release the captured gas, allowing the same BAETA sorbent to be reused across many cycles without significant degradation—an important practical and economic feature for industrial carbon-capture technologies.

Working in their lab are two members of the team of scientists who created the new carbon-capture material. Max Emil Madsen/University of Copenhagen

Researchers emphasize that their approach does not conflict with conventional recycling systems. Instead, BAETA production targets PET that is difficult to recycle—such as mixed or colored plastics—leaving higher-quality feedstock for traditional mechanical recycling efforts.

Published in Science Advances, this work adds to a growing field of plastic upcycling strategies that aim to create value-added products from waste—an important shift in thinking as global plastics production continues to climb and the need for scalable carbon management tools becomes more urgent.

If successfully scaled, the technology could pave a pathway toward tackling two of the world’s most entrenched environmental challenges—plastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions—with a single, chemistry-driven solution.