1e:T539,Microplastic pollution of water and ecosystem is attracting continued attention worldwide. Due to their small sizes (≤5 mm) microplastic particles can be discharged to the environment from treated wastewater effluents. As microplastics have polluted most of our aquatic ecosystems, often finding its way into drinking water, there is urgent need to find new solutions for tackling the menace of microplastic pollution. In this work, sustainable green photocatalytic removal of microplastics from water activated by visible light is proposed as a tool for the removal of microplastics from water. We propose a novel strategy for the elimination of microplastics using glass fiber substrates to trap low density microplastic particles such as polypropylene (PP) which in parallel support the photocatalyst material. Photocatalytic degradation of PP microplastics spherical particles suspended in water by visible light irradiation of zinc oxide nanorods (ZnO NRs) immobilized onto glass fibers substrates in a flow through system is demonstrated. Upon irradiation of PP microplastics for two weeks under visible light reduced led to a reduction of the average particle volume by 65%. The major photodegradation by-products were identified using GC/MS and found to be molecules that are considered to be mostly nontoxic in the literature.1f:T4a7,Reported here is the first highly selective conversion of various waste plastics into C₂ fuels under simulated natural environment conditions by a sequential photoinduced C-C cleavage and coupling pathway, where single-use bags, disposable food containers, food wrap films, and their main components of polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride can be photocatalytically transformed into CH₃ COOH without using sacrificial agents. As an example, polyethylene is photodegraded 100 % into CO₂ within 40 h by single-unit-cell thick Nb₂ O₅ layers, while the produced CO₂ is further photoreduced to CH₃ COOH. Various methods and experiments disclose that O₂ and ^. OH radicals trigger the oxidative C-C cleavage of polyethylene to form CO₂ , while other investigations show that the yielded CH₃ COOH stems from CO₂ photoreduction by C-C coupling of ^. COOH intermediates. This two-step plastic-to-fuel conversion may help to simultaneously address the white pollution crisis and harvest highly valuable multicarbon fuels in natural environments.

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