Xu Jiaqi, Jiao Xingchen, Zheng Kai, Shao Weiwei, Zhu Shan, Li Xiaodong, Zhu Junfa, Pan Yang, Sun Yongfu, Xie Yi
Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at Microscale, National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China.
Key Laboratory of Green Chemistry & Technology, Ministry of Education, College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610064, China.
Natl Sci Rev. 2022 Jan 28;9(9):nwac011. doi: 10.1093/nsr/nwac011. eCollection 2022 Sep.
Plastics take hundreds of years to degrade naturally, while their chemical degradation typically requires high temperature and pressure. Here, we first utilize solar energy to realize the sustainable and efficient plastic-to-syngas conversion with the aid of water at ambient conditions. As an example, the commercial plastic bags could be efficiently photoconverted into renewable syngas by Co-GaO nanosheets, with hydrogen and carbon monoxide formation rates of 647.8 and 158.3 μmol g h. characterizations and labelling experiments unveil water is photoreduced into hydrogen, while non-recyclable plastics including polyethylene bags, polypropylene boxes and polyethylene terephthalate bottles are photodegraded into carbon dioxide, which is further selectively photoreduced into carbon monoxide. In-depth investigation illustrates that the efficiency of syngas production mainly depends on the carbon dioxide reduction process and hence photocatalysts of high carbon dioxide reduction activity should be designed to promote the efficiency of plastic-to-syngas conversion in the future. The concept for the photoreforming of non-recyclable plastics into renewable syngas helps to eradicate 'white pollution' and alleviate the energy crisis simultaneously.
塑料需要数百年才能自然降解，而其化学降解通常需要高温高压。在此，我们首次利用太阳能在环境条件下借助水实现了塑料到合成气的可持续高效转化。例如，商用塑料袋可通过钴掺杂氧化镓纳米片高效光转化为可再生合成气，氢气和一氧化碳的生成速率分别为647.8和158.3 μmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹。表征和标记实验表明，水被光还原为氢气，而包括聚乙烯袋、聚丙烯盒和聚对苯二甲酸乙二酯瓶在内的不可回收塑料则被光降解为二氧化碳，二氧化碳进一步被选择性光还原为一氧化碳。深入研究表明，合成气生产效率主要取决于二氧化碳还原过程，因此未来应设计具有高二氧化碳还原活性的光催化剂来提高塑料到合成气转化的效率。将不可回收塑料光重整为可再生合成气的概念有助于同时消除“白色污染”和缓解能源危机。
