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Breaking the Yield‐Selectivity Trade‐Off in Polypropylene Upcycling via Ternary‐Active ZnAlO Nanocomposites
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Scientists developed a new catalyst that turns polypropylene, one of the most common plastics found in packaging and household items, into useful chemicals instead of waste. This matters because better plastic recycling methods could help reduce the plastic pollution and microplastics that end up in our environment, food, and bodies. The catalyst worked reliably even on real, dirty plastic waste, not just clean samples.
Plastic upcycling into iso ‐alkenes offers a sustainable route to mitigate plastic pollution and reduce the carbon footprint relative to petroleum‐derived routes. However, selective C─C bond cleavage remains challenging, often resulting in broad product distributions and limited yields. Here, we report a tandem decomposition‐catalysis strategy employing ternary‐active ZnAlO catalysts for the selective conversion of polypropylene (PP) into narrow‐range iso ‐alkenes. Zn 10 AlO (10 wt% Zn proportion) achieved a liquid yield of 77.75 wt% with 83.71% selectivity toward C 8 –C 12 iso ‐alkenes. The catalyst maintained liquid yield above 77 wt% and selectivity of ~84% toward narrow‐range iso ‐alkenes over 10 successive cycles without catalyst regeneration. Furthermore, Zn 10 AlO exhibited strong tolerance toward real‐world PP waste, delivering product distributions comparable to those obtained from virgin PP. Structural and catalytic investigations revealed that the ternary‐active ZnO─ZnAl 2 O 4 ─Al 2 O 3 nanocomposite, featuring balanced acidity and abundant oxygen vacancies, promoted controlled β ‐scission and isomerization while suppressing excessive cracking. Simply put, this work established a catalyst design strategy that integrated ternary‐active nanocomposites and tailored acidity to overcome the yield‐selectivity trade‐off in PP upcycling and enabled the efficient production of value‐added narrow‐range iso ‐alkenes.
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