Chemical Recycling of Polystyrene to Valuable Chemicals via Selective Acid-Catalyzed Aerobic Oxidation under Visible Light
Abstrak
Chemical recycling is one of the most promising technologies that could contribute to circular economy targets by providing solutions to plastic waste; however, it is still at an early stage of development. In this work, we describe the first light-driven, acid-catalyzed protocol for chemical recycling of polystyrene waste to valuable chemicals under 1 bar of O2. Requiring no photosensitizers and only mild reaction conditions, the protocol is operationally simple and has also been demonstrated in a flow system. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that singlet oxygen is involved as the reactive oxygen species in this degradation process, which abstracts a hydrogen atom from a tertiary C–H bond, leading to hydroperoxidation and subsequent C–C bond cracking events via a radical process. Notably, our study indicates that an adduct of polystyrene and an acid catalyst might be formed in situ, which could act as a photosensitizer to initiate the formation of singlet oxygen. In addition, the oxidized polystyrene polymer may play a role in the production of singlet oxygen under light.
Topik & Kata Kunci
Penulis (12)
Zhiliang Huang
M. Shanmugam
Zhaoiun Liu
Adam Brookfield
E. L. Bennett
Renpeng Guan
David E Vega Herrera
J. A. Lopez-Sanchez
A. Slater
E. McInnes
Xiaotian Qi
Jianliang Xiao
Akses Cepat
- Tahun Terbit
- 2022
- Bahasa
- en
- Total Sitasi
- 221×
- Sumber Database
- Semantic Scholar
- DOI
- 10.1021/jacs.2c01410
- Akses
- Open Access ✓