Upcycling of waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) into CoFe@C for highly efficient PV-driven bifunctional seawater splitting via a “waste materialization” strategy

Developing green and efficient techniques to convert plastic wastes into functional materials is attractive and remains highly challenging. This study employs a hydrothermal combining with pyrolysis process for constructing a Co 3 Fe 1 @C heterostructure from the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste-mediated metal-organic frameworks. The as-obtained Co 3 Fe 1 @C shows a core-shell structure and possesses good performance towards water electrolysis. The Co 3 Fe 1 @C can attain the current density of 100 mA cm −2 with an overpotential of 250 mV for oxygen evolution reaction (OER). In addition, the bifunctional Co 3 Fe 1 @C can realize the overall seawater electrolysis at 50 mA cm −2 with good stability for 280 h driven by a 2.2 V commercial silicon solar cell. Overall, this study demonstrates a green chemistry approach to simultaneous plastic waste upcycling and cost-effective electrocatalyst fabrication, which may stimulate further research on the “waste materialization” approach to converting solid waste into highly efficient catalysts for various chemistry and energy industry applications.