2025/09/05 by Margarita Poderyte, R. J. S. Lima, Peter Illum Golbækdal +5 · 21 citations
Chemical Engineering · Chemistry · Engineering · #Carbon Dioxide Capture Technologies #Carbon dioxide #Carbon dioxide utilization in catalysis #Chemistry #Composite material #Engineering #Environmental chemistry #Environmental science #Materials science #Membrane Separation and Gas Transport #Microplastics #Organic chemistry #Plastic waste #Polyethylene #Polyethylene terephthalate #Repurposing #Waste management
paper · pdf · doi:10.1126/sciadv.adv5906
published in Science Advances 11(36), eadv5906 (American Association for the Advancement of Science)
openalex publication_date 2025/09/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
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.