One-pot co-upcycling of mixed polyolefin waste

The compositional heterogeneity of post-consumer plastic waste, exemplified by prevalent polyethylene (PE)/polypropylene (PP) mixtures (>50% of the plastic market), severely complicates recycling. Kinetic disparities between PE and PP during chemical recycling create significant conversion gradients, limiting valued product yield and process viability. Here, leveraging strong interfacial coupling between ruthenium oxides and rutile TiO2, we construct highly active, epitaxial RuOx sites enabling efficient one-pot co-conversion of PE/PP mixtures with a high liquid yield of 95.02%, while maintaining a low 0.62% gas yield. Compared to conventional Ru nanoparticles, the epitaxial RuOx structure provides additional dehydrogenation sites for PP activation, which promotes carbon–metal back-donation to weaken C–C bonds, thus exhibiting comparable activation capabilities toward both 3C–2C bond in PP and 2C–2C bond in PE. This unique epitaxial catalyst enables highly efficient co-hydrogenolysis of mixed polyolefins, establishing a practical approach for their upcycling. Mixed plastic waste is hard to recycle because different polymers break down at different rates. This study designs a catalyst that converts common polyethylene and polypropylene mixtures in one step, delivering very high liquid yields with minimal gas.