Low-temperature dechlorination of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) for production of H<sub>2</sub> and carbon materials using liquid metal catalysts.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39047094.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adm9963 and PMC identifier 11268417.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is ubiquitous in everyday life; however, it is not recycled because it degrades uncontrollably into toxic products above 250°C. Therefore, it is of interest to controllably dechlorinate PVC at mild temperatures to generate narrowly distributed carbon materials. We present a catalytic route to dechlorinate PVC (~90% reduction of Cl content) at mild temperature (200°C) to produce gas H<sub>2</sub> (with negligible coproduction of corrosive gas HCl) and carbon materials using Ga as a liquid metal (LM) catalyst. A LM was used to promote intimate contact between PVC and the catalytic sites. During dechlorination of PVC, Cl is sequestrated in the carbonaceous solid product. Later, chlorine is easily removed with an acetone wash at room temperature. The Ga LM catalyst is reusable, outperforms a traditional supported metal catalyst, and successfully converts (untreated) discarded PVC pipe.