Page 30 - Plastics News Issue May 2025
P. 30
ENVIRONMENT NEWS
lar plastic but with a smaller environmental foot- Overall, these awards highlight how innovation is
print. Finally, the public voted Snap Slide’s easy- helping the plastics industry become more sus-
open medicine vial as their favourite. It’s safer, tainable, smarter, and more inclusive.
uses less plastic, and is easier to ship.
Source: Plastics Technology
Photo Reforming Of Plastic Waste Into Valuable Products
And Hydrogen Using A High-Entropy Oxynitride With
Distorted Atomic-Scale Structure
he persistent existence of plastic waste shows that, in addition to hybridization of 2p or-
causes serious problems for the environ- bitals from oxygen and nitrogen, nitrogen atoms
Tment, directly and indirectly affecting the distort the structure and completely change
health of organisms and humans. Photo reform- the neighbourhood of niobium and titanium (a
ing is a nature-friendly method that only uses main contributor to the conduction band), ex-
solar energy to convert plastic waste into green pands the atomic bonds of zirconium and tanta-
hydrogen (H2) and valuable organic products. lum, contracts the atomic bonds of hafnium and
This study shows that a high-entropy oxynitride decreases the binding energy of titanium, nio-
(HEON) photocatalyst, synthesized by the ad- bium and tantalum. These electronic structure
dition of nitrogen to a Ti-Zr-Hf-Nb-Ta-contain- changes lead to a narrower bandgap and dimin-
ing high-entropy oxide (HEO), exhibits a higher ished electron-hole recombination, enhancing
potential for the production of H2, formic acid the photo reforming performance. This study
and acetic acid from polyethylene terephthalate introduces HEONs with distorted atomic bond
(PET) photo reforming compared to the relevant structures as efficient low-bandgap and stable
HEO. catalysts for transforming plastics into high-val-
ue organic chemicals and H2 by photocatalysis.
Examination of X-ray absorption near edge
structure (XANES) and extended X-ray absorp- Source: arxiv
tion fine structure (EXAFS) by synchrotron light
30 PLASTICS NEWS May 2025
