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Plastic Upcycling into Advanced Materials

Zhenyue Zhang,B. Zhang,Qiqi Tang,Matthew Mrugala,Dongmin Zhang,Guolang Li,Wei Li,Jianzhen Ou

Published 2025 in Advanced Materials & Technologies

ABSTRACT

Plastic waste management remains a critical concern for environmental sustainability, making innovative and sustainable recycling approaches increasingly important. Plastic upcycling offers a promising pathway by converting plastic waste into high‐value advanced materials. This review explores the main upcycling approaches that are categorized into four sections: chemical upcycling (including catalytics depolymerization and solvolysis); thermal upcycling (including pyrolysis, gasification, and hydrothermal); biological upcycling (including enzymatic degradation and microbial conversion); Flash joule heating (FJH). These approaches yield carbon‐based materials, metal‐organic frameworks (MOFs), and different monomer/polymer composites from original plastics and special chemicals that find applications in various fields. While products from plastic upcycling are useful in many areas, such as electronics, sensors, construction, energy storage, and environmental restoration. Significant research gaps still remain. Key challenges are identified, including high energy consumption, heterogeneous feedstocks, enzyme inefficiency, and limited scalability. Future efforts should focus on advanced catalyst and enzyme design, the development of hybrid upcycling strategies integrated with renewable energy, and policy‐driven circular economy models to maximize the impact and feasibility of plastic upcycling.

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