Repurposing polyethylene terephthalate plastic waste to capture carbon dioxide
Margarita Poderyte, R. J. S. Lima, Peter Illum Golbækdal, Dennis Wilkens Juhl, Kathrine L. Olesen, Niels Chr. Nielsen, Arianna Lanza, Jiwoong Lee
Abstract
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a ubiquitous polymer with a lack of viable waste management solutions besides mechanical recycling, incineration, and landfilling. Herein, we demonstrate a chemical upcycling of PET waste into materials for CO 2 capture via aminolysis. The aminolysis reaction products—a bis-aminoamide (BAETA) and oligomers—exhibit high CO 2 capture capacity up to 3.4 moles per kilogram as a stand-alone organic solid material. BAETA shows strong chemisorption featuring high selectivity for CO 2 capture from flue gas (5 to 20% CO 2 ) and ambient air (~400 parts per million CO 2 ) under humid conditions. Our thermally stable material (>250°C) enables CO 2 capture at high temperatures (up to 170°C) for multiple cycles. Scalability of the material production was demonstrated by performing aminolysis of untreated consumer waste PET of 1 kilogram. Our approach introduces a simple and straightforward solution that can address both plastic waste and carbon dioxide, offering a potential pathway toward net negative emissions.