Zeng Lin, Yan Tao, Du Junjie, Liu Chengyuan, Dong Bin, Qian Bing, Xiao Zhou, Su Guangning, Zhou Tao, Peng Zijun, Wang Zhandong, Li Hongliang, Zeng Jie
Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale, CAS Key Laboratory of Strongly-Coupled Quantum Matter Physics, Key Laboratory of Surface and Interface Chemistry and Energy Catalysis of Anhui Higher Education Institutes, Department of Chemical Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, P. R. China.
National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, State Key Laboratory of Fire Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui 230026, P. R. China.
Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2024 Jun 10;63(24):e202404952. doi: 10.1002/anie.202404952. Epub 2024 May 6.
The vast bulk of polystyrene (PS), a major type of plastic polymers, ends up in landfills, which takes up to thousands of years to decompose in nature. Chemical recycling promises to enable lower-energy pathways and minimal environmental impacts compared with traditional incineration and mechanical recycling. Herein, we demonstrated that methanol as a hydrogen supplier assisted the depolymerization of PS (denoted as PS-MAD) into alkylbenzenes over a heterogeneous catalyst composed of Ru nanoparticles on SiO. PS-MAD achieved a high yield of liquid products which accounted for 93.2 wt % of virgin PS at 280 °C for 6 h with the production rate of 118.1 mmol g h. The major components were valuable alkylbenzenes (monocyclic aromatics and diphenyl alkanes), the sum of which occupied 84.3 wt % of liquid products. According to mechanistic studies, methanol decomposition dominates the hydrogen supply during PS-MAD, thereby restraining PS aromatization which generates by-products of fused polycyclic arenes and polyphenylenes.
聚苯乙烯（PS）是一种主要的塑料聚合物，其大部分最终被填埋，在自然环境中需要长达数千年才能分解。与传统的焚烧和机械回收相比，化学回收有望实现低能量路径并将对环境的影响降至最低。在此，我们证明了甲醇作为氢供体可辅助PS（记为PS-MAD）在由负载于SiO上的Ru纳米颗粒组成的多相催化剂上解聚为烷基苯。PS-MAD在280℃下反应6小时，液体产物的产率高达93.2 wt%（相对于原始PS），生产率为118.1 mmol g⁻¹ h⁻¹。主要成分是有价值的烷基苯（单环芳烃和二苯烷烃），其总和占液体产物的84.3 wt%。根据机理研究，甲醇分解在PS-MAD过程中主导氢供应，从而抑制了PS芳构化，而PS芳构化会产生稠合多环芳烃和聚亚苯基副产物。
