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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Chemoenzymatic Photoreforming: A Sustainable Approach for Solar-fuel Generation from Plastic Feedstocks
ClearChemoenzymatic Photoreforming: A Sustainable Approach for Solar Fuel Generation from Plastic Feedstocks
Researchers developed a process combining enzyme treatment with solar-powered chemistry to break down polyester plastics into clean hydrogen fuel and valuable chemicals. The enzymatic step first breaks the plastic into smaller molecules under mild conditions, and then sunlight drives the conversion into useful products. The study demonstrates a sustainable way to upcycle plastic waste, including nanoplastics, using renewable energy rather than harsh industrial processes.
Comprehensive Insights into Photoreforming of Waste Plastics for Hydrogen Production
This review examines photocatalytic "photoreforming" — a solar-powered process that breaks down waste plastics while simultaneously generating hydrogen fuel and useful chemical byproducts. Recent advances in catalyst design, including semiconductor materials and metal-organic frameworks, are analyzed alongside factors like light intensity and pH that affect hydrogen output. This dual-purpose approach could help address both the global plastic waste crisis and the need for clean energy simultaneously.
Building a bridge from solid wastes to solar fuels and chemicals via artificial photosynthesis
This review examined photoreforming (PR) as a process that converts solid plastic and other waste materials into hydrogen fuel and value-added chemicals using solar energy, combining waste remediation with clean fuel production. The authors assessed photocatalyst design strategies that enable efficient PR of diverse waste streams including polyethylene and polypropylene.
Photoreforming of PET and PLA microplastics for sustainable hydrogen production using TiO2 and g-C3N4 photocatalysts
Researchers used photoreforming—a light-driven process—to break down PET and PLA microplastics while simultaneously generating hydrogen gas, demonstrating a dual-benefit approach that addresses plastic pollution while producing clean energy from waste plastic.
Mini-review on remediation of plastic pollution through photoreforming: progress, possibilities, and challenges.
This mini-review examines photoreforming — a solar-powered process that converts plastic waste into valuable chemicals and hydrogen fuel — as a promising approach to reducing plastic pollution while generating clean energy. The authors review progress in the technology, assess remaining challenges such as efficiency and scalability, and place it in the context of other plastic waste remediation strategies.
From Plastic Waste to Green Hydrogen and Valuable Chemicals Using Sunlight and Water
This review examines how solar-powered photoreforming technology can convert plastic waste into valuable chemicals and green hydrogen using sunlight and water. Researchers found that while the approach shows significant promise as an alternative to landfilling, there is currently no standardized way to compare results across different studies. The study proposes guidelines for more consistent evaluation of photocatalyst performance to help advance this technology toward practical application.
Crucial role of pre-treatment in plastic photoreforming for precision upcycling
Researchers reviewed how pre-treating plastic waste before photoreforming — a process that uses sunlight to convert plastic into useful chemicals — dramatically affects what products are made and how efficiently. Understanding how polymer structure and preparation influence the reaction is key to turning plastic waste into valuable resources sustainably.
Systemically Understanding Aqueous Photocatalytic Upgrading of Microplastic to Fuels
This review examines photocatalytic methods for converting microplastic waste into renewable fuels using solar energy. These approaches could transform plastic pollutants into useful energy sources rather than allowing them to accumulate in the environment and food chain.
Photoreforming of Nonrecyclable Plastic Waste over a Carbon Nitride/Nickel Phosphide Catalyst
A carbon nitride/nickel phosphide photocatalyst was used to photoreform non-recyclable PET and PLA plastic waste at ambient temperature, producing clean hydrogen fuel and organic chemicals without precious metals or toxic components. The study demonstrates a low-energy, scalable approach to converting plastic waste into valuable chemical feedstocks using sunlight.
Photothermal recycling of waste polyolefin plastics into liquid fuels with high selectivity under solvent-free conditions
Researchers developed a sunlight-powered system using a ruthenium-titanium dioxide catalyst that converts waste polyolefin plastics — including common bags and containers — into liquid fuels like gasoline and diesel with 86% efficiency in just three hours. The method requires no solvents and runs on concentrated sunlight, offering a low-cost strategy to recycle otherwise hard-to-process plastic waste.
Solar-driven hydrogen evolution in alkaline seawater over earth-abundant g-C3N4/CuFeO2 heterojunction photocatalyst using microplastic as a feedstock
Researchers developed an earth-abundant photocatalyst that can produce hydrogen fuel by breaking down polyester microplastics using solar energy and seawater. The study demonstrates that this novel material achieved over 60-fold enhanced hydrogen production compared to its individual components, suggesting a promising approach for simultaneously addressing plastic pollution and sustainable energy generation.
Artificial photosynthesis bringing new vigor into plastic wastes
This review explores how artificial photosynthesis, which uses sunlight to drive chemical reactions, can convert plastic waste into valuable chemicals and fuels. The approach works under mild conditions and offers an energy-saving alternative to traditional plastic disposal methods like landfilling or incineration. While still in early stages, this technology could help address both plastic pollution and the need for sustainable carbon resources.
Plastics-to-syngas photocatalysed by Co–Ga2O3 nanosheets
Researchers developed a solar-powered photocatalytic method using cobalt-gallium oxide nanosheets to convert non-recyclable plastic bags into renewable syngas at ambient conditions, simultaneously addressing plastic pollution and energy production.
Photoreforming of Microplastics: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Environmental Remediation
This review explores photoreforming, a technology that uses sunlight to break down microplastics and convert them into useful chemicals like hydrogen fuel. The process could offer a sustainable way to clean up microplastic pollution while producing valuable products, though it is still in the early research stage. If scaled up, this approach could help reduce the environmental and health risks of microplastics by actually eliminating them rather than just filtering them out of water.
Pollutants to Products: A Tailored Multicomponent Photocatalyst for Simultaneous CO 2 and Plastic Waste Conversion
Researchers developed a photocatalyst that simultaneously converts CO2 and PET plastic waste into useful chemicals (CO, methane, ethylene glycol) using only light, with CO2 reduced at over 95% selectivity. The dual-use design eliminates the need for chemical sacrificial agents by using plastic as the electron donor for CO2 reduction. Beyond plastic recycling, the system also suggests a pathway for degrading microplastics, offering a single solar-driven process that tackles two major pollution problems at once.
Light-driven polymer recycling to monomers and small molecules
Researchers reviewed how sunlight can be harnessed to chemically break down plastic waste into reusable molecules, offering a lower-energy alternative to heat-based recycling methods like pyrolysis. While still limited to certain plastic types, light-driven recycling shows promise for converting hard-to-recycle plastics into valuable chemical building blocks.
Nanomaterials for Advanced Photocatalytic Plastic Conversion
This review examines the use of nanomaterials for photocatalytic conversion of waste plastics into useful chemicals and fuels, highlighting approaches that use sunlight as an energy source under ambient conditions. Photocatalytic upcycling of plastic waste offers a potentially sustainable alternative to conventional thermal and chemical recycling methods.
Photocatalytic Upcycling of Plastic Waste: Mechanism, Integrating Modus, and Selectivity
This review examines how photocatalysis, a process that uses light energy to drive chemical reactions, can transform plastic waste into useful products under mild and environmentally friendly conditions. Researchers compared photocatalytic approaches with other methods like heat-based and electrical catalysis, and explored how different experimental setups influence what end products are created. The study suggests that photocatalytic upcycling of plastics is a promising green technology, though challenges remain in improving efficiency and selectivity.
Systemically Understanding Aqueous Photocatalytic Upgrading of Microplastic to Fuels
This review examined photocatalytic methods for converting microplastics into valuable fuels in water, summarizing advances in reactants, pretreatments, catalysts, and reactor design while highlighting the need for improved pretreatment processes to enhance efficiency and selectivity.
Hydrogen Generation from PS and PE Microplastics via UV Photocatalysis
Scientists explored whether UV light—with and without a titanium dioxide photocatalyst—could break down polystyrene and polyethylene microplastics while simultaneously generating hydrogen gas, effectively converting plastic pollution into a clean fuel. Overall degradation rates remain low and practical barriers (particle settling, light penetration) are significant, but the study maps the thermodynamic and chemical conditions that favor reactivity. This dual-purpose approach—pollution remediation plus energy recovery—is an intriguing direction for future research if efficiency can be improved.
Bimetallic defect-engineered CoMoMOF modulates CdZnS for efficient hydrogen production from water/microplastic waste
Researchers created a novel photocatalyst combining metal-defect-engineered materials to simultaneously generate hydrogen fuel and break down PET plastic waste using light energy. The system produced significantly more hydrogen using PET microplastics as a feedstock compared to water alone, suggesting plastic waste could serve as a raw material for clean energy production. This "waste to fuel" approach could address both the plastic pollution crisis and the energy transition, though it remains at an early laboratory stage.
Dual-Doped Nickel Sulfide for Electro-Upgrading Polyethylene Terephthalate into Valuable Chemicals and Hydrogen Fuel
Researchers developed a catalyst that can convert PET plastic waste into valuable chemicals and clean hydrogen fuel using electricity. By doping nickel sulfide with cobalt and chloride, they achieved high efficiency and selectivity in breaking down a key PET building block. The study demonstrates a promising approach for upcycling plastic waste into useful products rather than sending it to landfills.
From photocatalysis to photon–phonon co-driven catalysis for methanol reforming to hydrogen and valuable by-products
This review covers hydrogen production from methanol using light-driven chemical reactions, examining new photocatalytic materials and methods. While not about microplastics directly, the clean energy technologies discussed could help reduce fossil fuel dependence and the plastic production that drives microplastic pollution.
Electrocatalytic upcycling of polyethylene terephthalate to commodity chemicals and H2 fuel
Researchers developed an electrocatalytic process that breaks down waste PET plastic (the kind used in water bottles) into valuable chemicals and clean hydrogen fuel using a specially designed nickel-cobalt catalyst. The process achieved high efficiency at industrial-scale current densities, offering a potentially profitable way to recycle plastic waste into useful products.