Conversion of Compositionally Diverse Plastic Waste over Earth-Abundant Sulfides

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

Description

This document is the Accepted Manuscript version of a Published Work that appeared in final form in Journal of the American Chemical Society, copyright © 2025 American Chemical Society after peer review and technical editing by the publisher. To access the final edited and published work see https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c18001. This article will be embargoed until 04/02/2026.

Keywords

additives, catalysts, catalytic reactions, polymers, zeolites

Citation

Selvam, Esun, Zoé O. G. Schyns, Jessie A. Sun, Pavel A. Kots, Yeonsu Kwak, LaShanda T. J. Korley, Raul F. Lobo, and Dionisios G. Vlachos. “Conversion of Compositionally Diverse Plastic Waste over Earth-Abundant Sulfides.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 147, no. 13 (April 2, 2025): 11227–38. https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.4c18001.

URI

https://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/36022

Collections

Open Access Publications - Center for Plastics Innovation Center for Plastics Innovation
Open Access Publications - Center for Research in Soft matter & Polymers
Open Access Publications - Delaware Energy Institute Delaware Energy Institute
Open Access Publications - Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering
Open Access Publications - Materials Science and Engineering

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