(473d) Deconstruction of Waste Polyethylene into Liquid Hydrocarbon Fuels and Lubricants over Ru Catalyst

Polyethylene (PE) is the most popular plastic globally, and the widespread use of plastics has created severe environmental issues. High energy consumption in the current process makes its recycling a challenging problem. In our report, the depolymerization of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) was conducted in various liquid-phase solvents with the Ru/C catalyst under relatively mild conditions. The maximum yields of the jet-fuel-range and lubricant hydrocarbons were 60.8 wt% and 31.6 wt%, respectively. After optimizing the reaction conditions (220 °C and 60 bar of H₂), the total yield of liquid hydrocarbon products reached approximately 90 wt% within only one hour. The product distribution could be tuned by the H₂ partial pressure, the active metal particle size, and the solvents. The solvation of PE in the different solvents determined the depolymerization reaction kinetics, which was confirmed by the molecular dynamics (MD) simulation results.