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Chemical Recycling of Polystyrene to Valuable Chemicals via Selective Acid-Catalyzed Aerobic Oxidation under Visible Light
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High Resolution Image Download MS PowerPoint Slide Chemical recycling is one of the most promising technologies that could contribute to circular economy targets by providing solutions to plastic waste; however, it is still at an early stage of development. In this work, we describe the first light-driven, acid-catalyzed protocol for chemical recycling of polystyrene waste to valuable chemicals under 1 bar of O 2 . Requiring no photosensitizers and only mild reaction conditions, the protocol is operationally simple and has also been demonstrated in a flow system. Electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) investigations and density functional theory (DFT) calculations indicate that singlet oxygen is involved as the reactive oxygen species in this degradation process, which abstracts a hydrogen atom from a tertiary C–H bond, leading to hydroperoxidation and subsequent C–C bond cracking events via a radical process. Notably, our study indicates that an adduct of polystyrene and an acid catalyst might be formed in situ, which could act as a photosensitizer to initiate the formation of singlet oxygen. In addition, the oxidized polystyrene polymer may play a role in the production of singlet oxygen under light.
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Metadata
- Authors
- Huang, Z., Shanmugam, M., Liu, Z., Brookfield, A., Bennett, E. L., Guan, R., Vega Herrera, D. E., Lopez-Sanchez, J. A., Slater, A. G., McInnes, E. J. L., Qi, X., & Xiao, J.
- Venue
- Journal of the American Chemical Society
- Publisher
- American Chemical Society (ACS)
- Published
- 2022-03-30
- Volume
- 144
- Issue
- 14
- Pages
- 6532-6542
- ISSN
- 0002-7863 (ISSN-L)
- 1520-5126
- OpenAlex
- W4220739075
- Cited by
- 365
- References
- 66
- FWCI
- 26.23
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
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