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Updated: Jan 11, 2026
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Published on: January 30, 2015
Electrocatalytic Conversion of Polyethylene Terephthalate Plastics into Value-Added Glycolic Acid and Hydrogen
Kai Shi1, Wenbo Li1,2, Lisong Chen1,2
1State Key Laboratory of Petroleum Molecular & Process engineering, Shanghai Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry and Chemical Processes, ECNU Engineering Center for Sustainable Carbon, School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China.
Abstract:
Electrocatalytic small organic molecule oxidation coupled with hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has attracted great attention recently for the coproduction of value-added chemicals and hydrogen at ambient temperature. Herein, Pt/MnMoO4/NF has been developed as both anode and cathode for the concurrent high value-added glycolic acid productions and high purity hydrogen generation. The prepared Pt/MnMoO4/NF nanosheet arrays exhibits high activity for selective ethylene glycol oxidation in polyethylene terephthalate hydrolysate solution, which shows a low potential of only 0.87 V to drive the current density of 100 mA cm-2 and the faradaic efficiency (glycolic acid) of ≈78.8% at the cell voltage of 1.0 V. Moreover, Pt/MnMoO4/NF nanosheet arrays also demonstrates excellent HER performance with ultralow overpotential as low as 31.02 mV to reach the current density of 10 mA cm-2, which is much lower than most literature reports. This work may pave a new way for efficient coproduction of value-added chemicals and hydrogen under ambient conditions powered by renewable electricity and the design of bifunctional catalysts.
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