Recycling Valuable Alkylbenzenes from Polystyrene through Methanol‐Assisted Depolymerization

Abstract

AbstractThe vast bulk of polystyrene (PS), a major type of plastic polymers, ends up in landfills, which takes up to thousands of years to decompose in nature. Chemical recycling promises to enable lower‐energy pathways and minimal environmental impacts compared with traditional incineration and mechanical recycling. Herein, we demonstrated that methanol as a hydrogen supplier assisted the depolymerization of PS (denoted as PS‐MAD) into alkylbenzenes over a heterogeneous catalyst composed of Ru nanoparticles on SiO2. PS‐MAD achieved a high yield of liquid products which accounted for 93.2 wt % of virgin PS at 280 °C for 6 h with the production rate of 118.1 mmolcarbon gcatal.−1 h−1. The major components were valuable alkylbenzenes (monocyclic aromatics and diphenyl alkanes), the sum of which occupied 84.3 wt % of liquid products. According to mechanistic studies, methanol decomposition dominates the hydrogen supply during PS‐MAD, thereby restraining PS aromatization which generates by‐products of fused polycyclic arenes and polyphenylenes.