Catalytic Degradation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Using a Phase-Transitional Zirconium-Based Metal–Organic Framework

Yufang Wu; Xingjie Wang; Kent O. Kirlikovali; Xinyi Gong; Ahmet Atilgan; Kaikai Ma; Neil M. Schweitzer; Nathan C. Gianneschi; Zhong Li; Xuan Zhang; Omar K. Farha

doi:10.1002/anie.202117528

Catalytic Degradation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Using a Phase-Transitional Zirconium-Based Metal–Organic Framework

Yufang Wu, Xingjie Wang, Kent O. Kirlikovali, Xinyi Gong, Ahmet Atilgan, Kaikai Ma, Neil M. Schweitzer, Nathan C. Gianneschi, Zhong Li, Xuan Zhang, Omar K. Farha^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

73 Scopus citations

Abstract

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is utilized as one of the most popular consumer plastics worldwide, but difficulties associated with recycling PET have generated a severe environmental crisis with most PET ending its lifecycle in landfills. We report that zirconium-based metal–organic framework (Zr-MOF) UiO-66 deconstructs waste PET into the building blocks terephthalic acid (TA) and mono-methyl terephthalate (MMT) within 24 hours at 260 °C (total yield of 98 % under 1 atm H₂ and 81 % under 1 atm Ar). Extensive structural characterization studies reveal that during the degradation process, UiO-66 undergoes an intriguing transformation into MIL-140A, which is another Zr-MOF that shows good catalytic activity toward PET degradation under similar reaction conditions. These results illustrate the diversity of applications for Zr-MOFs and establish MOFs as a new class of polymer degradation catalysts with the potential to address long-standing challenges associated with plastic waste.

Original language	English (US)
Article number	e202117528
Journal	Angewandte Chemie - International Edition
Volume	61
Issue number	24
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202117528
State	Published - Jun 13 2022

Funding

O.K.F. acknowledges support from the Inorganometallic Catalyst Design Center, an EFRC funded by the DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences (DE‐SC0012702). O.K.F. and N.C.G. gratefully acknowledge support from National Science Foundation's MRSEC program (grant number NSF DMR‐1720139). X.G. is supported by the Ryan Fellowship and the Northwestern University International Institute for Nanotechnology. K.O.K. gratefully acknowledges support from the IIN Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Northwestern University International Institute for Nanotechnology. Y.W. gratefully acknowledges support from the Oversea Study Program of Guangzhou Elite Project during her visit to Northwestern University (JY201901). This work made use of the IMSERC facility at Northwestern University, which has received support from the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS‐2025633), and Northwestern University. This work made use of the EPIC facility of Northwestern University's NUANCE Center, which has received support from the Soft and Hybrid Nanotechnology Experimental (SHyNE) Resource (NSF ECCS‐2025633), the International Institute for Nanotechnology (IIN) and the Northwestern's MRSEC program (NSF DMR‐1720139). The REACT Core facility acknowledges funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Catalysis Science program (DE‐SC0001329). The authors thank Dr. Timur Islamoglu and Dr. Massimiliano Delferro for helpful discussions.

Keywords

Metal–Organic Frameworks
PET Degradation
Phase Transitions
Plastic Recycling

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Catalysis
General Chemistry

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

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10.1002/anie.202117528

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Wu, Y., Wang, X., Kirlikovali, K. O., Gong, X., Atilgan, A., Ma, K., Schweitzer, N. M., Gianneschi, N. C., Li, Z., Zhang, X., & Farha, O. K. (2022). Catalytic Degradation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Using a Phase-Transitional Zirconium-Based Metal–Organic Framework. Angewandte Chemie - International Edition, 61(24), Article e202117528. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.202117528

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Catalytic Degradation of Polyethylene Terephthalate Using a Phase-Transitional Zirconium-Based Metal–Organic Framework

Abstract

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Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

UN SDGs

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