Constructing bifunctional porous nanosheets for efficient conversion of waste plastics into valuable hydrogen and carbons

Metal oxides as promoting materials can convert waste plastics into hydrogen (H 2 ) fuel by microwave pyrolysis, solving ecological pollution worldwide, but their tendency of agglomeration and poor porosity limit further applications. Herein, we reported a two-dimensional (2D) metal oxide nanosheets with porous network for recycling high-purity hydrogen and carbon nanotubes from waste plastics in microwave-induced reaction. The 2D porous structure significantly improves the growing space of CNTs and enhances the ability of wave absorption, thereby exhibiting a remarkable H 2 selectivity of 87.5% and high H 2 yield of 60.2 mmol g −1 LDPE, as well as producing high-value CNTs. Moreover, the reaction mechanism for microwave-induced catalytic pyrolysis is proposed, where the Fe 2 O 3 particles on composites facilitated the breakage of C-H bonds, contributing to the generation of H 2 . The current work provides new insights into the recovery of waste plastics by metal oxides through microwave pyrolysis.