Solar Light-Assisted Photocatalytic Conversion of Plastics into Hydrogen and Value-Added Chemicals

Plastics have become an integral part of our lives, offering affordability, convenience resilience, and versatility. Yet, their widespread use, coupled with their disposability and resistance to degradation, presents a significant challenge to environmental sustainability. The accumulation of disposed plastics poses significant problems to entire manhood and nature. Thus photocatalytic technology emerged as an affordable, environmentally suitable, and sustainable process for the conversion of plastics at normal temperature and pressure under the illumination of visible or solar light. The mild reaction conditions of photocatalysis facilitate the precise transformation of plastic waste into fuels or chemicals. Here, we discuss the recent advancements in photocatalytic plastic conversion using different photocatalysts for the production of hydrogen or value-added chemicals. Among all the catalysts, CdS/NiS is prepared via hydrothermal treatment for the solar-light-assisted transformation of plastics to hydrogen. The developed CdS/NiS is capable of generating a maximum hydrogen (62.9 mmol g-1 h-1) production via photocatalytic conversion of polylactic acid. A special emphasis is provided on the photocatalytic plastic conversion mechanism into fuels. Finally, the important challenges and future research perspectives are outlined.