My interest in online scientific content usually begins and ends with cute animal videos. Over the weekend, however, I noticed that a lot of people I follow were talking about Julian Brown, a 21-year-old Black man from Atlanta, whose invention of Plastoline — a fuel derived from plastic waste — recently went viral. Brown, who posts to social media under the name naturejab_ mysteriously stopped posting two weeks ago. His last video ominously indicated that he felt like his life was in danger, and now he’s missing.
I’m not going to pretend that I fully understand the thermochemical process behind creating Brown’s Plastoline. I did some internet research, and this guy is like a real-life Chris Knight from Real Genius.
In high school, Brown created a small reactor that thermally degrades plastic in a 100% carbon-neutral process into usable fuel. He’s been improving upon his original design for the past five years.
According to one of his videos, he used to do his work in his parents’ backyard. After suffering from burns during an explosion, he moved to a remote location. In a post from June, he claimed he’s being threatened by the EPA and the IRS, and that he’s been targeted by the government for surveillance.
I know that all sounds like a coked-up conspiracy theory straight out of Goodfellas. But Henry Hill was actually under surveillance by the government. Brown may have been, too. His videos have the manic energy of someone who knows they’re on the verge of a breakthrough. Whether your field is science or art, you know the feeling. It’s hard to contain your excitement when you think you’re about to change the world.
His followers have expressed concern for his safety before.
Now that it’s been two weeks since he last posted anything to social media, his supporters and followers fear the worst. Yesterday, someone posted to Threads that they’ve been in touch with Julian through his Discord server. They claim he’s safe and that he lost access to his social media accounts in a “security breach.”
Others are not so quick to trust this message in this age of anonymous accounts and deep fakes.
Some discount his invention as lacking significance, or for being a known process that doesn’t have any economic feasibility. But not many 21-year-olds can say they’ve built any sort of reactor from scratch, let alone one that might have an impact on reducing global plastic waste. So it seems like a pretty big deal regardless.
Julian Brown and his reactor have been featured in Forbes, The Root, and on both local and international news shows.
Now, publications are writing about him being missing. It’s bringing new attention to his innovation and to what some see as a growing problem of outspoken, young Black people being silenced on social media and in real life.
