Congratulations to Dr. Hua Zhou for his work on electrocatalytic upcycling of plastics published in Nat. Commun. and received plenty of attention on social media!

Supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 21978147, 21935001) and The Beijing Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 2214063), the team recently proposed and validated a new path for hydrogen production from waste polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic through upgrading and recycling coupled with water electrolysis. The waste PET plastic can be converted into high added value terephthalic acid and potassium terephthalate by electrocatalytic technology coupling with the production of hydrogen fuel.  The work was published in Nature Communications  (Duan, H. et al. Nature Communications, 2021, 12, 4679).
After the publication of this paper, researchers and social groups have attracted extensive attention. The US websites, C&EN, Forbes, and UK website, Nature Portfolio have highlighted the work. Chinese newspapers such as Chinese Journal of Science and Technology, Science Daily and mainstream media such as Sciencenet, China News Service, NetEase News and Thepaper.cn have also interviewed and reported the work