Conversion of Compositionally Diverse Plastic Waste over Earth-Abundant Sulfides

• DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c18001
• Publication Date: 2025-03-22T05:38:49Z
• Authors: Esun Selvam; Zoé O. G. Schyns; Jessie A. Sun; Pavel A. Kots; Yeonsu Kwak; LaShanda T. J. Ko...; Raul F. Lobo; Dionisios G. Vlachos
• Keywords: Polyolefin; Heteroatom; Naphtha; Petrochemical; Plastic Waste; Methylcyclopentane

Chemical deconstruction of polyolefin plastic wastes via hydroconversion is promising for mitigating accumulation in landfills and the environment. However, catalysts cannot handle complex feedstocks containing multiple polymers, additives, heteroatom impurities. Here, we report a single-step strategy using earth-abundant metal sulfide to deconstruct these wastes. We show that NiMoSx/HY feedstocks, achieving ∼81–94% selectivity liquid products. Postsynthetic zeolite modification enhances catalyst's activity by >2.5 times, over 95% fuels with controllable product distribution naphtha, jet fuel, diesel range. The catalyst resilient increasingly such as additive-containing polymers mixed plastics composed polyolefins heteroatom-containing including poly(vinyl chloride). extend single-use can generate toxic byproducts, HCl NH3, eliminate their emissions integrating reaction sorption one-step process.