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Shanghai Advanced Institute has made new progress in the research of upgrading and recycling of waste plastics.

Sustainable Plastics and Fuels 2025-03-27 09:50:55

The rapid increase in global plastic waste has led to serious environmental pollution and resource waste. Currently, products obtained from physical recycling have low value, while chemical recycling, as a method capable of achieving the conversion of waste plastics into renewable energy, has gained wide attention. Based on this, a research team led by Researcher Wang Hui and Senior Engineer Luo Hu from the Shanghai Advanced Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed the upgrading and utilization of waste plastics to produce naphtha, which is then converted into ethylene monomers through steam cracking, establishing a recycling and closed-loop utilization system for waste polyethylene plastics (J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2023). Furthermore, they designed a non-precious metal Ni-based catalyst to achieve selective hydrogen cracking of real waste plastics to produce naphtha. The research results were published in the flagship journal of the Chinese Chemical Society, CCS Chemistry, under the title "Green Upcycling of Waste Agricultural Plastic Film under Mild Conditions."

Figure 1 Green upgrading recycling and circular utilization of abandoned polyethylene plastic.

After the pre-treatment of discarded polyethylene plastic to remove impurities, Ni-Ca/ZrO2 and Beta molecular sieve were used as catalysts under conditions of 250 °C and 3 MPa hydrogen pressure. The yield of naphtha was 87%, with a selectivity for C5-C11 alkanes reaching 98%. The electron transfer of Ni is conducive to the generation of Niδ+ species, enhancing the catalytic hydrogenation activity of the olefin intermediates, while the micropores of the Beta molecular sieve can effectively screen low-carbon alkanes, thereby selectively producing naphtha products.

In the context of recycling and utilizing abandoned polyethylene plastics, LCA and TEA analyses reveal that the waste plastic-to-naphtha strategy can reduce CO2 emissions by 82% compared to incineration for power generation, while achieving energy self-sufficiency. Profitability can be achieved when the scale exceeds 10,000 tons per year, highlighting significant industrial application potential and providing a new solution for the upgraded utilization of waste plastics.

Figure 2 Sustainability Assessment of Upgrading Waste Plastics

This research work is supported by multiple projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation, the Shanghai Low Carbon Technology Innovation Functional Platform, and the Zhejiang Provincial Engineering Center for Lipid-Soluble Vitamins.

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Shanghai Advanced Institute has made new progress in the research of upgrading and recycling of waste plastics.

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