Ziqiang Wang, Han Lin, Wenxin Wang, Hongjie Yu, You Xu, Kai Deng*, Hongjing Wang*, Liang Wang*

Cite this article: Chin. J. Struct. Chem., 2025, 44(12), 100745. DOI: 10.1016/j.cjsc.2025.100745

Publication date: December 1, 2025

Keywords: High-entropy metallene nanoribbon; Multi-metallic synergistic effect; PET plastic upgrading; Ethylene glycol oxidation; Glycolic acid production

ABSTRACT

The electrochemical upgrading of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastics represents a highly promising strategy for achieving high-value utilization of waste resources, and its efficiency is highly related to identify active electrocatalysts for PET-derived ethylene glycol oxidation reaction (EGOR). In this work, atomically thin high-entropy PdPtRhFeCuMo metallene nanoribbons (PdPtRhFeCuMo HMRs) have been synthesized and served as high-performance catalysts for electro-reforming PET plastic, which possess a high current density of 180 mA cm-2 at a low potential of 0.9 V for EGOR, with excellent Faraday efficiency of 96.81% for highly efficient and selective conversion of EG into high-value-added glycolic acid (GA). Experimental and theoretical results reveal that the multi-metallic synergistic effect of PdPtRhFeCuMo HMRs effectively modulates adsorption behavior of intermediates and reduce the EGOR energy barrier, thus promoting the selective EG-to-GA conversion. This study proposes the reasonable design of high-entropy metallene nanoribbons for the electrochemical upgrading of PET plastics to high-value C2 products.