Aqueous Upcycling of Polyethylene Furanoate From Mixed Plastic Feeds Into Metal‐Organic Frameworks

Aqueous Upcycling of Polyethylene Furanoate From Mixed Plastic Feeds Into Metal‐Organic Frameworks

Angewandte Chemie International Edition

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.4173692

https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.4173692

Tristan T. Y. Tan, Jiawei Huang, Clemen J. G. Goh, Wei Wei Loh, Hencong Huang, Ken‐ichi Otake, Qianyu Lin, Wenyi Zeng, Yinqiao Wang, Derek Yiren Ong, Susumu Kitagawa, Kai Lan, Jason Y. C. Lim

09 April 2026

Tan, T. T. Y., Huang, J., Goh, C. J. G., Loh, W. W., Huang, H., Otake, K.-i., Lin, Q., Zeng, W., Wang, Y., Ong, D. Y., Kitagawa, S., Lan, K., & Lim, J. Y. C. (2026). Aqueous Upcycling of Polyethylene Furanoate From Mixed Plastic Feeds Into Metal‐Organic Frameworks. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 65(21). Portico. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.4173692

ABSTRACT Mixed and contaminated plastic waste is the dominant obstacle to plastics' circularity because most recycling or upcycling technologies require clean, pre‐sorted feedstocks. Here, we demonstrate a sorting‐free upcycling method with purification embedded in upcycling. Polyethylene furanoate (PEF), an emerging biomass‐derived polyester, is converted in water into the valuable metal‐organic framework (MOF) MIL‐160 in high yield. This method remains effective when using unsorted polymer mixtures, including mixtures containing competing polyesters such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polylactic acid (PLA), yielding a pure MOF with no loss in sorption performance. To address the MOF's own end‐of‐life, we demonstrate the ease of recovering 2,5‐furan‐dicarboxylic acid (FDCA) from MIL‐160 for recycling and redeployment to produce other MOFs such as CAU‐28. This connects plastic upcycling to MOF end‐of‐life management, showing that the upcycled product is not a dead‐end material but a reversible reservoir of FDCA that can be recovered and recirculated. Life cycle assessment showed that producing MIL‐160 from mixed PET/PEF plastic feedstock results in a 31% reduction in life‐cycle global warming potential compared to using biomass directly. Additionally, techno‐economic analysis supported the economic feasibility of producing MIL‐160 from mixed PET/PEF. Valorizing PEF into MOFs with diverse applications offers viable end‐of‐life solutions for these bioplastics.

Publisher Copyright

This research / project is supported by the National Research Foundation - NRF Fellowship
Grant Reference no. : NRF-NRFF15–2023–0007

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Tan, T. T. Y., Huang, J., Goh, C. J. G., Loh, W. W., Huang, H., Otake, K.-i., Lin, Q., Zeng, W., Wang, Y., Ong, D. Y., Kitagawa, S., Lan, K., & Lim, J. Y. C. (2026). Aqueous Upcycling of Polyethylene Furanoate From Mixed Plastic Feeds Into Metal‐Organic Frameworks. Angewandte Chemie International Edition, 65(21). Portico. https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.4173692 , which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.4173692. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions. This article may not be enhanced, enriched or otherwise transformed into a derivative work, without express permission from Wiley or by statutory rights under applicable legislation. Copyright notices must not be removed, obscured or modified. The article must be linked to Wiley’s version of record on Wiley Online Library and any embedding, framing or otherwise making available the article or pages thereof by third parties from platforms, services and websites other than Wiley Online Library must be prohibited.

https://oar.a-star.edu.sg/communities-collections/articles/23242

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