Recently, the research team of Researcher Wang Jianjun from the Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has made important progress in the field of plastic degradation with the developed silica - based composite catalyst. This catalyst can increase the degradation efficiency of PET (polyethylene terephthalate) plastic by 8 times, and the reaction conditions are mild. The relevant research results have been published in the journal Green Chemistry.

Traditional plastic degradation technologies have problems such as high reaction temperature (usually exceeding 200℃), high energy consumption, and low product purity. The research team loaded ruthenium - palladium bimetallic nanoparticles in the nanopores of silica to construct a "support - active center" synergistic catalytic system: the ordered mesoporous structure of silica provides a diffusion channel for plastic molecules, and the metal nanoparticles can precisely break the ester bonds in PET molecules.

Experimental data shows that in an aqueous solution at 80℃, this catalyst can degrade PET bottle flakes into terephthalic acid monomers with a purity of 99.5% within 4 hours, with a degradation rate of 98%, saving more than 60% energy compared with traditional catalysts. At present, the team has built a hundred - kilogram - scale pilot plant, and the degradation products can be directly used in the production of recycled plastics, providing a new solution for the plastic circular economy.