Global CO₂ emissions and plastic pollutants are two of the most urgent environmental challenges. Here, I²CNER’s research team has reported a unified photocatalytic strategy that simultaneously converts CO₂ and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste into value-added products under light irradiation. CO₂ is selectively reduced to CO with over 95% selectivity, while PET is transformed to methane, terephthalate, ethylene glycol, glycolate, and acetate. This dual process is enabled by a distorted high-entropy oxide (BaTiNbTaZnO₉), containing electron-accepting d⁰ cations (Ba, Ti, Nb, and Ta), electron-donating d¹⁰ cations (Zn), and Lewis-basic Ba sites for CO₂ adsorption, whose distorted atomic environment was confirmed by synchrotron X-ray adsorption spectroscopy. The cooperative use of CO₂ and plastic as complementary redox partners eliminates sacrificial agents and enhances redox efficiency compared with conventional CO₂ conversion. Beyond mitigating two persistent pollutants, this solar-driven approach also suggests a pathway for microplastic degradation, establishing a scalable concept for integrated waste-to-fuel technologies.

Thanh Tam Nguyen, Junji Nakamura, and Kaveh Edalati, “Pollutants to Products: A Tailored Multicomponent Photocatalyst for Simultaneous CO₂ and Plastic Waste Conversion”, Small, 2026, DOI：10.1002/smll.202513379