Furthermore, the researchers demonstrated the feasibility, effectiveness, and universality of this method by monitoring the full catalytic separation and transformation of real-life plastic waste mixtures. Their NMR-based analysis enabled the mapping of each step in the conversion process—from complex mixtures to multiple high-value chemicals products.

By identifying characteristic functional group signals in plastic waste mixtures, the researchers laid a solid foundation for their effective separation and transformation. This work paves the way for integrating existing transformation processes into a unified framework, providing technical support for scalable industrial solutions to global plastic pollution.

"Solid-state NMR provides a powerful way to identify individual components in plastic waste mixtures. It acts as a 'guiding eye' for the separation and catalytic transformation processes, laying the technological foundation for real-life solutions to plastic pollution," said Prof. XU.

In-line NMR guided orthogonal transformation of real-life plastics. Meiqi Zhang, Yida Zhou, Ruochen Cao, Shuheng Tian, Yuchen Jiao, Zhenbo Guo, Maolin Wang, Hongpeng Peng, Bo Sun, Bingjun Xu, Meng Wang*, Shutao Xu*, Ding Ma*, Nature, 2025.