Authors: Wei Zhang, Sungmin Kim, Lennart Wahl, Rachit Khare, Lillian Hale, Jianzhi Hu, Donald M. Camaioni, Oliver Y. Gutiérrez, Yue Liu, Johannes A. Lercher
Published: 2023-03-01
Source: Full article
Selective upcycling of polyolefin waste has been hampered by the relatively high temperatures that are required to cleave the carbon-carbon (C–C) bonds at reasonably high rates. We present a distinctive approach that uses a highly ionic reaction environment to increase the polymer reactivity and lower the energy of ionic transition states. Combining endothermic cleavage of the polymer C–C bonds with exothermic alkylation reactions of the cracking products enables full conversion of polyethylene and polypropylene to liquid isoalkanes (C