Liu Yuanbo, Duan Haohong
Engineering Research Center of Advanced Rare Earth Materials (Ministry of Education), Department of Chemistry, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China.
Haihe Laboratory of Sustainable Chemical Transformations, Tianjin 300192, China.
Fundam Res. 2024 Jan 17;5(3):913-918. doi: 10.1016/j.fmre.2023.11.015. eCollection 2025 May.
Massive production but inadequate end-of-life management of plastics cause environment pollution and carbon resource wasting. It is desirable to develop sustainable approaches to transform plastic wastes into value-added products, termed plastic upcycling, with low energy consumption. In this context, photo-, electro-, and photoelectro-catalysis represent potentially sustainable approaches, because of mild operating conditions and possibility of incorporating renewable energy sources. In this perspective, we summarized recent advances of these approaches for plastic upcycling, with particular interest in polyesters and vinyl polymers because of their high market capacities. We focused on the design of reaction routes and understanding of reaction mechanisms, showing their high efficiency for plastic waste upcycling in different manners. Eventually, we proposed further direction and opportunities of these approaches towards practical application.
塑料的大规模生产但寿命终结管理不足导致环境污染和碳资源浪费。开发可持续的方法将塑料废物转化为增值产品，即所谓的塑料升级回收，且能耗低，这是很有必要的。在这种情况下，光催化、电催化和光电催化代表了潜在的可持续方法，因为其操作条件温和且有可能纳入可再生能源。从这个角度出发，我们总结了这些塑料升级回收方法的最新进展，由于聚酯和乙烯基聚合物的市场容量大，我们对它们特别感兴趣。我们专注于反应路线的设计和反应机理的理解，展示了它们以不同方式对塑料废物升级回收的高效率。最后，我们提出了这些方法在实际应用方面的进一步方向和机会。
