The massive consumption of plastic is posing severe pollution-related
challenges globally. As the most abundant polyester plastic, polyethylene
terephthalate (PET) waste represents a largely untapped resource for
generating chemicals and fuels. However, the current widespread use
of alkali/organic solvents and the complex processing of PET reduce
its environmental sustainability. Herein, a novel and simple one-pot
strategy was first reported for the catalytic conversion of PET into
H2 fuel and terephthalic acid in a pure-water system under
mild conditions. A high H2 yield of 19.97 mol/kgPET and carbon conversion efficiency of 97.22% were obtained for the
Ru-5ZnO/mesoporous carbon (MEC) catalyst at a low temperature of 250
°C. This process proceeds through tandem catalytic reactions
with an initial PET depolymerization step, followed by in situ aqueous
phase reforming (APR) of ethylene glycol of Ru. Remarkably, ZnO inhibited
the deactivation of Ru/MEC in the PET depolymerization stage, causing
an increase in H2 production from the in situ APR stage.
Importantly, this strategy was successfully applied to four types
of real-world PET waste and their mixtures, demonstrating that it
has considerable potential in practical applications and provides
a sustainable and clean solution to the plastic waste problem.
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