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Co-upcycling of polyvinyl chloride and polyesters

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 1685–1692 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Catalytic upcycling of plastic wastes to valuable chemicals offers the opportunity to simultaneously address the enormous environmental problems associated with plastics and achieve the circular economy. However, the upcycling of plastic wastes containing polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is particularly challenging due to the interference of chlorine, which can be released during PVC depolymerization and deactivate the catalyst. Here we present a catalytic process for the co-upcycling of PVC and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). By using a chlorine-containing ionic liquid as the catalyst/solvent and ZnCl2 as Lewis acid catalyst, with in situ utilization of PVC-released chlorine, we successfully converted PET into terephthalic acid and 1,2-dichloroethane with high yields. The results reveal that chlorine from PVC, previously considered detrimental to the transformation of other polymers and the cause of catalyst poisoning, can actually have a positive role in the upcycling of plastic wastes. This work can incentivize further progress in plastics upcycling and pave the way to sustainable plastic wastes management, moving societies one step forward towards realizing the circular economy.

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Fig. 1: Proposed reaction route.
Fig. 2: Dehydrochlorination of PVC and storage of HCl in ionic liquids.
Fig. 3: Reaction performance of PET depolymerization by HCl or PVC.
Fig. 4: The simultaneous conversion of real-life PET–PVC plastic wastes with recycling of the ionic liquid and catalyst.

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Acknowledgements

This work received financial support from the Natural Science Foundation of China (22072002, 21725301, 22232001, 21932002, 21821004), China National Petroleum Corporation–Peking University Strategic Cooperation Project of Fundamental Research, National Key R&D Program of China (2022YFA1504800, 2021YFA1501102) and the New Cornerstone Science Foundation. D.M. acknowledges support from the Tencent Foundation through the XPLORER PRIZE.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Ruochen Cao, Mei-Qi Zhang, Yuchen Jiao.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, New Cornerstone Science Laboratory, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Ruochen Cao, Mei-Qi Zhang, Yuchen Jiao, Yuchen Li, Bo Sun, Meng Wang & Ding Ma

  2. Center for Integrative Materials Discovery, Department of Chemistry and Chemical and Biomedical Engineering, University of New Haven, West Haven, CT, USA

    Dequan Xiao

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Contributions

D.M. and M.W. conceived the project. R.C., M.-Q.Z, Y.J. and Y.L. performed most of the reactions. R.C., M.-Q.Z, Y.J., B.S., D.X., M.W. and D.M. analysed the data and wrote the paper. All authors contributed to the discussion and revision of the paper. We appreciate the help of Analytical Instrumentation Center of Peking University.

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Correspondence to Meng Wang or Ding Ma.

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Cao, R., Zhang, MQ., Jiao, Y. et al. Co-upcycling of polyvinyl chloride and polyesters. Nat Sustain 6, 1685–1692 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-023-01234-1

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