Controlling the selectivity of the hydrogenolysis of polyamides catalysed by ceria-supported metal nanoparticles

XinBang Wu, Wei-Tse Lee, Roland C. Turnell-Ritson, Pauline C. L. Delannoi, Kun-Han Lin () and Paul J. Dyson ()
Additional contact information
XinBang Wu: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Wei-Tse Lee: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Roland C. Turnell-Ritson: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Pauline C. L. Delannoi: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)
Kun-Han Lin: National Tsing Hua University (NTHU)
Paul J. Dyson: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Catalytic hydrogenolysis is a promising approach to transform waste plastic into valuable chemicals. However, the transformation of N-containing polymers, such as polyamides (i.e. nylon), remains under-investigated, particularly by heterogeneous catalysis. Here, we demonstrate the hydrogenolysis of various polyamides catalysed by platinum-group metal nanoparticles supported on CeO2. Ru/CeO2 and Pt/CeO2 are both highly active but display different selectivity; Ru/CeO2 is selective for the conversion of all polyamides into water, ammonia, and methane, whereas Pt/CeO2 yields hydrocarbons retaining the carbon backbone of the parent polyamide. Density functional theory computations illustrate that Pt nanoparticles require higher activation energy for carbon−carbon bond cleavage than Ru nanoparticles, rationalising the observed selectivity. The high activity and product selectivity of both catalysts was maintained when converting real-world polyamide products, such as fishing net. This study provides a mechanistic basis for heterogeneously catalysed polyamide hydrogenolysis, and a new approach to the valorisation of polyamide containing waste.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-42246-x Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-42246-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-42246-x

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().