Zhenzhen Yang

New Capabilities

As of September 2026: Active; leads follow-up research on salt stability

An Oak Ridge National Laboratory team has turned polyethylene, the most common plastic in shopping bags and cutting boards, into gasoline and diesel by stirring it into molten aluminum chloride salts at under 200°C. The reaction yields about 60% gasoline and runs at the heat of a kitchen oven, not a blast furnace.

Updated Sep 21