New Progress in Catalytic Upcycling of Waste Plastics Published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition

Recently, significant progress has been made in the catalytic upcycling of waste polyolefin plastics into light olefins under mild conditions. This research was carried out through a collaboration between the research groups of Professor Yan Li and Professor Sheng Dai from the School of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering at ECUST. The findings were published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition under the title Mild-Condition Upcycling of Polyolefins Enabled by Micropore Confinement in Zeolites. By leveraging micropore confinement effects and molecular diffusion behavior, the team developed a controllable selective cracking strategy. This approach offers a new pathway to lower energy consumption and minimize reliance on process requirements such as hydrogen, solvents, and other co-reactants.

Professor Yan Li and Professor Sheng Dai are the corresponding authors of the paper, and doctoral candidate Zhuohan Lin is the first author. The research was supported by several platforms, including the Key Laboratory for Advanced Functional Materials with Controllable Structure and Their Preparation (Ministry of Education) and the Feringa Nobel Prize Scientist Joint Research Center.