Highly Selective Catalytic Oxi-upcycling of Polyethylene to Aliphatic Dicarboxylic Acid under a Mild Hydrogen-Free Process

Kaili Wang; Rongrong Jia; Ping Cheng; Liyi Shi; Xiang Wang; Lei Huang

doi:10.1002/anie.202301340

Highly Selective Catalytic Oxi-upcycling of Polyethylene to Aliphatic Dicarboxylic Acid under a Mild Hydrogen-Free Process

Angew Chem Int Ed Engl. 2023 Jul 17;62(29):e202301340. doi: 10.1002/anie.202301340. Epub 2023 Jun 14.

Authors

Kaili Wang^{1

2}, Rongrong Jia², Ping Cheng³, Liyi Shi², Xiang Wang⁴, Lei Huang²

Affiliations

¹ School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
² Research Center of Nano Science and Technology, College of Sciences, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, P. R. China.
³ School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China.
⁴ State Key Laboratory of Fine Chemicals, School of Chemical Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, 116024, China.

PMID: 37211533
DOI: 10.1002/anie.202301340

Abstract

A low-temperature hydrogen-free process for upcycling polyethylene (PE) plastics into aliphatic dicarboxylic acid is developed using a heterogeneous catalyst Ru/TiO₂ . The low-density PE (LDPE) conversion can reach 95 % in 24 h under a pressure of 1.5 MPa air at 160 °C with 85 % of the liquid product yield, which mainly is low molecular weight aliphatic dicarboxylic acid. Excellent performances can be also achieved for different PE feedstocks. This catalytic oxi-upcycling process paving a new way of upcycling polyethylene waste.

Keywords: Aliphatic Dicarboxylic Acid; Polyethylene; TiO2; Upcycling; Waste Plastic.

Abstract

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