ArticleScience advances2025
Geography-guided industrial-level upcycling of polyethylene terephthalate plastics through alkaline seawater-based processes.
Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reactant-Sustained Dynamically Stable Interfacial Hydrogen-Bond Network for Highly Selective, Ampere-Level Ethylene Glycol Electrooxidation.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- An Oxygen-Defect-Induced Unsaturated Coordination Strategy Boosts High-Selective PET Upcycling via Suppressing Oxygen Evolution.Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) · 2026Article
- Dynamic Material Reconstruction Dominates Stable and Efficient Upgrading of Polyester Plastics in Electrolyzer Stacks With High Voltage Fluctuations.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Photothermal Catalytic Depolymerization and Glycolytic Regeneration of Polyethylene Terephthalate.ChemSusChem · 2026Review
- NiMo Dual-Atom Dimers on Pd Nanosheets for Selective C─H and C─C Bond Cleavage of Ethylene Glycol From Waste Plastics.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Breaking the Adsorption Seesaw Via Asymmetric Pt-M Sites for PET Electro-Upcycling.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Pulsed Electrolysis Prevents Sulfur Poisoning for Sustained Sulfide Valorization.Advanced materials (Deerfield Beach, Fla.) · 2026Article
- Carbonylolysis of waste polyesters into high-value organic acids.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Bridging Green Chemistry and Circular Economy: A Pathway to Sustainable Polyester Plastics Through Feedstock, Synthesis, and Waste Upcycling.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The escalating plastic crisis can be mitigated by upgrading waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET). Leveraging the geographical advantages of offshores with established chlor-alkali industries, abundant renewable energy, and extensive seawater, we here present a technically and economically viable strategy of harnessing natural seawater as a medium to transform PET plastics into high-value chemicals. We report a nickel-molybdenum catalyst incorporating frustrated Lewis pairs for the efficient breakage of C─C bond and the oxidation of ethylene glycol, which sustains a current of 6 amperes at 1.74 volts over 350 hours, with a projected revenue of approximately $304 United States dollar (USD) per ton of processed PET plastics. In a customized electrolyzer, we successfully convert 301.0 grams of waste PET into 227.1 grams of p-phthalic acid (95.5% yield), 1486.2 grams of potassium diformate (67.2% yield), and approximately 214.9 liters of green hydrogen. This study paves the way for scalable PET upcycling, contributing to a circular economy and mitigating the plastic pollution crisis.
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.