Piezocatalytic reforming of plastics into high-value chemicals.

Abstract

Upcycling of various plastic wastes and their mixtures into clean fuels at ambient conditions holds great potential, but challenging the mild catalytic technologies in terms of product selectivity. Herein, we propose constructing mechanically-driven piezocatalytic reforming system as a universal plastic reforming platform, based on [PO₄] unit-substituted BiOIO₃ nanorods. The [PO₄] tetrahedra acting as polarization vacancies disrupt the symmetric dipole alignment of [IO₃] units to beak the see-saw effect between effective active sites and piezoelectric polarization intensity, achieving polarization reorientation and constructing I ⋅ ⋅ ⋅ O_P frustrated Lewis acid-base pairs, which undergo kinetically-favorable dynamic transformation under periodic stress. This system successfully produces H₂ and CO from typical plastic including polyester, polylactic acid, polyethylene, and their mixtures with selectivity beyond 87% in gas. Especially, methanol and ethanol with the total yield of 91.84 mmol⋅g^-1⋅h^-1 can be directly obtained from polyester in liquid, setting a mechanical-to-chemical conversion efficiency of 4.96%.