Breaking the Adsorption Seesaw Via Asymmetric Pt-M Sites for PET Electro-Upcycling

Yiran Zuo; Cong Wei; Yanyan Fang; Chongyang Tang; Jinglei Chen; Dongyang Wu; Zhaohui Liu; Xuanwei Yin; Zenan Bian; Yifan Wang; Xinyue Du; Lin Jiang; Qiyuan He; Gongming Wang

doi:10.1002/adma.73610

Breaking the Adsorption Seesaw Via Asymmetric Pt-M Sites for PET Electro-Upcycling

Yiran Zuo
, Cong Wei^*
, Yanyan Fang
, Chongyang Tang
, Jinglei Chen
, Dongyang Wu
, Zhaohui Liu
, Xuanwei Yin
, Zenan Bian
, Yifan Wang
, Xinyue Du
, Lin Jiang^*
, Qiyuan He^*
, Gongming Wang^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Research output: Journal Publications and Reviews › RGC 21 - Publication in refereed journal › peer-review

Abstract

Electrochemical upgrading of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste to high-value glycolic acid (GA) offers a sustainable route for plastic valorization. However, due to the uniform and limited electron density, the adsorption of the key intermediate ethylene glycol (EG) and hydroxyl (OH) on Pt catalysts is restricted by a linear-scaling-governed “see-saw” relationship, which inevitably leads to a fundamental activity bottleneck. Herein, we find that constructing asymmetric nucleophilic – electrophilic Pt – M sites can overcome this bottleneck via coupled electronic and geometric effects. The nucleophilic Pt sites favor the moderate adsorption of EG, while the electrophilic M sites favor OH adsorption, breaking the linear-scaling constraint. The synthesized Pt – Fe nanowires with asymmetric dual sites display breakthrough intrinsic activity with an onset potential of 0.225 V vs. RHE for GA evolution, and achieve energy – effective GA production in a continuous flow electrolyzer with a daily revenue of $258.97/ton in PET upcycling. Operando characterization confirms that the asymmetric construction disrupts the linear adsorption coupling behavior. Importantly, an “asymmetric dual – site electronic – geometric coupling” descriptor is proposed to capture the decoupled adsorption behavior, which is applicable to other Pt – M (Fe, Co, Ni, Pd, Au) catalysts. © 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

Original language	English
Article number	e73610
Number of pages	11
Journal	Advanced Materials
Online published	8 Jun 2026
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/adma.73610
Publication status	Online published - 8 Jun 2026

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support provided by the following funding programs: the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2021YFA1500400); the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 21925110, 22175163, 22321001,22509200 and 52371229); the Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province (Grant Nos. 2208085UD04 and 2508085QB040); the Anhui Provincial Development and Reform Commission (AHZDCYCX-LSDT2023-08 and AHZDCYCX-LSDT2023-07); the Department of Ecology and Environment of Anhui Province (Grant No. 2023hb0018); the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant Nos. WK9990250184, WK9990250176 and WK2060000016); the Joint Support Program of the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation and Anhui Province (Grant No. 2025T005AH); and the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant Nos. 2025M770150 and 2024M763137). the Postdoctoral Fellowship Program of the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (CPSF, Grant No. GZB20250037); We also acknowledge the staff at the Robotic AI Scientist Platform of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the BL14W1 and BL11B beamlines of the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF), the BL10B and BL01B beamlines of the Hefei National Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory (NSRL), as well as the Instrumentation Center for Physical Sciences at the University of Science and Technology of China, for their valuable support with the material characterizations. The numerical calculations in this study were conducted at the Supercomputing Center of the University of Science and Technology of China.

Research Keywords

adsorption
electrochemistry
electrolysis
ethylene glycol
glycolic acid

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title = "Breaking the Adsorption Seesaw Via Asymmetric Pt-M Sites for PET Electro-Upcycling",

abstract = "Electrochemical upgrading of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste to high-value glycolic acid (GA) offers a sustainable route for plastic valorization. However, due to the uniform and limited electron density, the adsorption of the key intermediate ethylene glycol (EG) and hydroxyl (OH) on Pt catalysts is restricted by a linear-scaling-governed “see-saw” relationship, which inevitably leads to a fundamental activity bottleneck. Herein, we find that constructing asymmetric nucleophilic – electrophilic Pt – M sites can overcome this bottleneck via coupled electronic and geometric effects. The nucleophilic Pt sites favor the moderate adsorption of EG, while the electrophilic M sites favor OH adsorption, breaking the linear-scaling constraint. The synthesized Pt – Fe nanowires with asymmetric dual sites display breakthrough intrinsic activity with an onset potential of 0.225 V vs. RHE for GA evolution, and achieve energy – effective GA production in a continuous flow electrolyzer with a daily revenue of \$258.97/ton in PET upcycling. Operando characterization confirms that the asymmetric construction disrupts the linear adsorption coupling behavior. Importantly, an “asymmetric dual – site electronic – geometric coupling” descriptor is proposed to capture the decoupled adsorption behavior, which is applicable to other Pt – M (Fe, Co, Ni, Pd, Au) catalysts. {\textcopyright} 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH.",

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author = "Yiran Zuo and Cong Wei and Yanyan Fang and Chongyang Tang and Jinglei Chen and Dongyang Wu and Zhaohui Liu and Xuanwei Yin and Zenan Bian and Yifan Wang and Xinyue Du and Lin Jiang and Qiyuan He and Gongming Wang",

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T1 - Breaking the Adsorption Seesaw Via Asymmetric Pt-M Sites for PET Electro-Upcycling

AU - Zuo, Yiran

AU - Wei, Cong

AU - Fang, Yanyan

AU - Tang, Chongyang

AU - Chen, Jinglei

AU - Wu, Dongyang

AU - Liu, Zhaohui

AU - Yin, Xuanwei

AU - Bian, Zenan

AU - Wang, Yifan

AU - Du, Xinyue

AU - Jiang, Lin

AU - He, Qiyuan

AU - Wang, Gongming

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N2 - Electrochemical upgrading of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste to high-value glycolic acid (GA) offers a sustainable route for plastic valorization. However, due to the uniform and limited electron density, the adsorption of the key intermediate ethylene glycol (EG) and hydroxyl (OH) on Pt catalysts is restricted by a linear-scaling-governed “see-saw” relationship, which inevitably leads to a fundamental activity bottleneck. Herein, we find that constructing asymmetric nucleophilic – electrophilic Pt – M sites can overcome this bottleneck via coupled electronic and geometric effects. The nucleophilic Pt sites favor the moderate adsorption of EG, while the electrophilic M sites favor OH adsorption, breaking the linear-scaling constraint. The synthesized Pt – Fe nanowires with asymmetric dual sites display breakthrough intrinsic activity with an onset potential of 0.225 V vs. RHE for GA evolution, and achieve energy – effective GA production in a continuous flow electrolyzer with a daily revenue of $258.97/ton in PET upcycling. Operando characterization confirms that the asymmetric construction disrupts the linear adsorption coupling behavior. Importantly, an “asymmetric dual – site electronic – geometric coupling” descriptor is proposed to capture the decoupled adsorption behavior, which is applicable to other Pt – M (Fe, Co, Ni, Pd, Au) catalysts. © 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

AB - Electrochemical upgrading of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste to high-value glycolic acid (GA) offers a sustainable route for plastic valorization. However, due to the uniform and limited electron density, the adsorption of the key intermediate ethylene glycol (EG) and hydroxyl (OH) on Pt catalysts is restricted by a linear-scaling-governed “see-saw” relationship, which inevitably leads to a fundamental activity bottleneck. Herein, we find that constructing asymmetric nucleophilic – electrophilic Pt – M sites can overcome this bottleneck via coupled electronic and geometric effects. The nucleophilic Pt sites favor the moderate adsorption of EG, while the electrophilic M sites favor OH adsorption, breaking the linear-scaling constraint. The synthesized Pt – Fe nanowires with asymmetric dual sites display breakthrough intrinsic activity with an onset potential of 0.225 V vs. RHE for GA evolution, and achieve energy – effective GA production in a continuous flow electrolyzer with a daily revenue of $258.97/ton in PET upcycling. Operando characterization confirms that the asymmetric construction disrupts the linear adsorption coupling behavior. Importantly, an “asymmetric dual – site electronic – geometric coupling” descriptor is proposed to capture the decoupled adsorption behavior, which is applicable to other Pt – M (Fe, Co, Ni, Pd, Au) catalysts. © 2026 Wiley-VCH GmbH.

KW - adsorption

KW - electrochemistry

KW - electrolysis

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KW - glycolic acid

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Breaking the Adsorption Seesaw Via Asymmetric Pt-M Sites for PET Electro-Upcycling

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