Vanadium-Doped Ru/Ru Phosphide Mott–Schottky Nanoparticle Heterojunctions for Degrading Polyethylene Terephthalate Beverage Bottles

Polyethylene terephthalate (PET) is a widely used plastic; however, it is not easily degraded. Actually, the ethylene glycol (EG) derived from PET hydrolysate can be electrocatalytically oxidized to high-value-added formic acid (FA); the design of the electrocatalyst is the key issue. However, the conventional catalyst suffers from high cost and single activity, thus obtaining high voltage for water splitting and low Faradaic efficiency (FE). Herein, a V-doped Ru/RuP 4 Mott–Schottky (M–S) heterojunction is fabricated, and 10%V-Ru/RuP 4 has the widest band gap and good sensitivity to the EG oxidative reaction (EGOR), thus showing outstanding electrocatalytic performances with a low EGOR voltage of 1.05 V at 10 mA cm –2 in 1 M KOH + 0.3 M EG. Meanwhile, 10%V-Ru/RuP 4 has a good hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) performance with a low HER potential of 119 mV at 10 mA cm –2 . Furthermore, the EG is electrocatalytically oxidized to FA via a high FE of 93.9% at 1.5 V. This work provides a special M–S heterojunction for PET degrading and upcycling linked to hydrogen evolution.