Electrocatalytic Conversion of Polyethylene Terephthalate Plastics into Value‐Added Glycolic Acid and Hydrogen

Electrocatalytic small organic molecule oxidation coupled with hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) has attracted great attention recently for the coproduction of value‐added chemicals and hydrogen at ambient temperature. Herein, Pt/MnMoO 4 /NF has been developed as both anode and cathode for the concurrent high value‐added glycolic acid productions and high purity hydrogen generation. The prepared Pt/MnMoO 4 /NF nanosheet arrays exhibits high activity for selective ethylene glycol oxidation in polyethylene terephthalate hydrolysate solution, which shows a low potential of only 0.87 V to drive the current density of 100 mA cm −2 and the faradaic efficiency (glycolic acid) of ≈78.8% at the cell voltage of 1.0 V. Moreover, Pt/MnMoO 4 /NF nanosheet arrays also demonstrates excellent HER performance with ultralow overpotential as low as 31.02 mV to reach the current density of 10 mA cm −2 , which is much lower than most literature reports. This work may pave a new way for efficient coproduction of value‐added chemicals and hydrogen under ambient conditions powered by renewable electricity and the design of bifunctional catalysts.