Polysyrene Boosts Power and Emissions When Dissolved Into Diesel

This is pretty cool. Polystyrene, you know, styrofoam, that evil stuff that doesn't ever go away and that caused McDonald's to change their burger containers? Ya, that stuff.

Well, it turns out there is a good use for it. It can be dissolved and added to diesel fuel to boost it's performance. It also boosts biodiesel in the same way.

A couple of researchers at Iowa State University (wait a minute...Iowa researches not doing ethanol?) named Najeeb Kuzhiyil and Song-Charng Kong figured out that polystyrene easily dissolves into diesel and biodiesel fuels. This newly-enhanced biodiesel produces more power per gallon burned.

The good side of this is that less fuel is burned to gain more power from the engine. The bad news is that harmful emissions also increase. Not surprising, though, since it's oil that made the styrofoam in the first place and now it's being burned.

The up side is that this could be a great way to both boost the power output of biodiesel fuels but also reduce the otherwise never-degrading polystyrene that piles up in our landfills. The best part? There's no "process" for dissolving the polystyrene. It dissolves like butter on hot toast when dropped into the fuel.