Towards the Circular Economy: Converting Aromatic Plastic Waste Back to Arenes over a Ru/Nb2O5 Catalyst

Abstract The upgrading of plastic waste is one of the grand challenges for the 21 st century owing to its disruptive impact on the environment. Here, we show the first example of the upgrading of various aromatic plastic wastes with C−O and/or C−C linkages to arenes (75–85 % yield) via catalytic hydrogenolysis over a Ru/Nb 2 O 5 catalyst. This catalyst not only allows the selective conversion of single‐component aromatic plastic, and more importantly, enables the simultaneous conversion of a mixture of aromatic plastic to arenes. The excellent performance is attributed to unique features including: (1) the small sized Ru clusters on Nb 2 O 5 , which prevent the adsorption of aromatic ring and its hydrogenation; (2) the strong oxygen affinity of NbO x species for C−O bond activation and Brønsted acid sites for C−C bond activation. This study offers a catalytic path to integrate aromatic plastic waste back into the supply chain of plastic production under the context of circular economy.