Upcycle polyethylene terephthalate waste by photoreforming: Bifunction of Pt cocatalyst

Upcycle polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste by photoreforming (PR) is a sustainable and green approach to tackle environmental problems but with challenges to obtain valuable oxidation products and high purity hydrogen simultaneously. Noble metal cocatalysts are essential to enhance the overall PR reaction efficacy. In this work, TiO₂ nanotubes (TiO₂ NTs) decorated with single Pt atoms (Pt₁/TiO₂) or Pt nanoparticles (Pt_NPs/TiO₂) are used in the photoreforming reaction (in one batch), and the oxidation products from ethylene glycol (EG, hydrolysed product of PET) in liquid phase and hydrogen are detected. With Pt₁/TiO₂, EG is oxidized to glyoxal, glyoxylate or lactate, and hydrogen evolution rate (r H₂) reaches 51.8 μmol⋅h^-1⋅g_cat^-1, that is 30 times higher than that of TiO₂. For Pt_NPs/TiO₂ (size of Pt NPs: 1.97 nm), hydrogen evolution reaches 219.1 μmol⋅h^-1⋅g_cat^-1, but with the oxidation product of acetate only. DFT calculation demonstrates that for Pt NPs, the reaction path for hydrogen evolution is preferred thermodynamically, due to the formation of Schottky junction. On the oxidation of EG, theoretical and spectroscopic analysis suggest that bidentate adsorption of EG at the interface is facile on Pt₁/TiO₂, compared to that on Pt_NPs/TiO₂ (two Pt sites), but oxidation products, adsorb less strongly, compared to Pt_NPs/TiO₂, that eventually regulates the distribution of oxidation products. The results thus demonstrate the bifunctions of Pt in the PR reaction, i.e., electron transfer mediator for hydrogen evolution and reactive sites for molecules adsorption. The oxidation reaction is dominated by the adsorption-desorption behavior of molecules but the reduction reaction is controlled by the electron transfer. In addition, acidification of pretreated PET alkaline solution achieves separation of pure terephthalic acid (PTA), which further improves the reaction efficiency possibly by offering high density of active sites and acidic environment. Our work thus demonstrates that to upcycle PET plastics, an optimized process can be reached by atomic design of photocatalysts and proper treatment on the plastic wastes.