Highly Selective Gasoline Production by Polyethylene Hydrogenolysis Using Ternary RuNiPt Nanoalloy Catalyst

The catalytic recycling of polyolefins offers a promising route for transforming waste plastics into valuable chemicals. However, achieving high gasoline selectivity remains challenging, as uncontrolled C-C bond cleavage leads to overcracking of desirable gasoline products and promotes cascade reactions that form methane. Here, we report a ternary RuNiPt nanoalloy catalyst that enables highly selective hydrogenolysis of polyethylene into liquid hydrocarbons (C5-C24) with narrow carbon distributions in the gasoline range (C5-C12). The catalyst achieves 90% liquid selectivity with minimal methane generation at 94% conversion and a 67% yield of gasoline-range hydrocarbons, the highest reported to date among metal catalysts. A rationally engineered synergistic effect enables the simultaneous achievement of high catalytic activity and high liquid-product selectivity: Ru-Ni sites suppress undesired cascade reactions, while Ru-Pt sites sustain high activity. The Ru-Ni-Pt ensemble specifically suppresses the chemisorption and activation of gasoline-range molecules, thereby inhibiting overcracking. The RuNiPt alloy demonstrates broad applicability across diverse polyolefins and provides new insights into the rational design of multialloy catalysts for selective plastic upcycling.