Highly selective upcycling of plastic mixture waste by microwave-assisted catalysis over Zn/b-ZnO

7 billion of 9.2 billion tons of plastic produced becomes waste while conventional catalytic plastic recycling methods are vulnerable with degraded performance and intensive energy input. Here, a hybrid Zn/b-ZnO catalyst, together with the specially-designed microwave reaction system, has achieved fast plastic waste upgrading under atmospheric pressure without using H2. Bifunctional ZnO acts as a microwave absorber and substrate catalyst, and in-situ formed Zn clusters promote C-C bond cleavage and nearly 100% upcycle landfilled plastic mixtures into lubricant base oil precursors and monomers. Unprecedented turnover number (250 gplastic g−1catalyst) of plastic depolymerisation and long-time stability over 50…

• NN
  National Natural Science Foundation of China

  Awards: 2019YFA0708700, U23B20162, 22250710677, 21808241