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Towards the Circular Economy: Converting Aromatic Plastic Waste Back to Arenes over a Ru/Nb2 O5 Catalyst
Yaxuan Jing1,2, Yanqin Wang1, Shinya Furukawa3,4
1Key Laboratory for Advanced Materials and Joint International Research Laboratory of Precision Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center, Research Institute of Industrial Catalysis, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, 200237, China.
Abstract:
The upgrading of plastic waste is one of the grand challenges for the 21st century owing to its disruptive impact on the environment. Here, we show the first example of the upgrading of various aromatic plastic wastes with C-O and/or C-C linkages to arenes (75-85 % yield) via catalytic hydrogenolysis over a Ru/Nb2 O5 catalyst. This catalyst not only allows the selective conversion of single-component aromatic plastic, and more importantly, enables the simultaneous conversion of a mixture of aromatic plastic to arenes. The excellent performance is attributed to unique features including: (1) the small sized Ru clusters on Nb2 O5 , which prevent the adsorption of aromatic ring and its hydrogenation; (2) the strong oxygen affinity of NbOx species for C-O bond activation and Brønsted acid sites for C-C bond activation. This study offers a catalytic path to integrate aromatic plastic waste back into the supply chain of plastic production under the context of circular economy.
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