Protocol for photocatalytic upcycling of non-biodegradable plastics into platform chemicals at ambient conditions

Abstract

Upcycling plastics presents an opportunity not only to reduce plastic waste, but also to provide an alternative carbon source to fossil fuels. Herein, we present a protocol to upcycle plastics with resin codes 2-7 using a commercially available base-metal photocatalyst. We first conducted batch reactions, followed by a continuous, segmented flow system for gram-scale upcycling into value-added platform chemicals. This protocol, employing tandem carbon-hydrogen bond oxidation/carbon-carbon bond cleavage reactions, can be useful for photocatalytically transforming plastics at ambient conditions. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Li et al. (2023).