Alcohol–alkali hydrolysis for high-throughput PET waste electroreforming-assisted green hydrogen generation

Abstract

Electroreforming of plastic wastes into value-added chemicals is considered as a promising method for waste valorization and resource recovery. However, it remains a grand challenge because low solubility of PET in the electrolyte limits the practical application and potential for scale up. Herein, we demonstrate an alcohol–alkali combined depolymerization strategy to improve the solubility of PET waste bottles by 4.5 times (to 91 g L⁻¹) compared with pure alkaline hydrolysis, and then recycle PET bottles into terephthalic acid and formate. By using an iron, cobalt co-modified nickel phosphide nanosheet on nickel foam electrocatalyst (FeCo–Ni₂P/NF), we achieve ultrahigh hydrogen evolution activity and alcohol oxidation activity with 71 mV and 76 mV overpotentials, respectively, at 10 mA cm⁻² current density. Moreover, we employed photovoltaic modules to power the cogeneration of formate and H₂ by recycling of PET waste bottles, which showed immense potential for sustainable collaborative production of H₂ fuel and value-added chemicals from the waste plastic.