Dataset for article Solar Reforming of Plastics using Acid-catalyzed Depolymerization

The accumulation of plastics such as PET, Nylon 66, and polyurethane (PU), presents an environmental challenge requiring scalable circular solutions. Here, we report photoreforming (PR) of acid-hydrolyzed waste plastics into H2 and value-added products using an acid–stable photocatalyst composed of cyanamide-functionalized carbon nitride integrated with cobalt–promoted molybdenum disulfide (CoMoS2-CNx). Under AM 1.5G, CoMoS2-CNx yields 0.35 ± 0.02 mmol H2 gcat⁻¹ from PET, increasing to 1.9 ± 0.1 mmol H₂ gcat–¹ under 405 nm irradiation. In 24 h Nylon 66 and PU yield 1.0 ± 0.4 mmol H2 gcat–¹and 4.2 ± 0.1 mmol H2 gcat–¹ respectively. From stability tests, the catalyst remains active over 11 days, affording up to 40% ethylene glycol conversion, 89% acetic acid selectivity and a 9.0% quantum yield. Acid hydrolysis, enabled by recycled sulfuric acid from spent lead-acid batteries, underpins technoeconomic viability, indicating profitable solar-driven processing of ton-scale plastic waste. File list: Data for Repository: Main Text Figures - contains subfolders with data grouped according to Figure 1, 2, 3, 4 and Scheme 1 (as TIFF, JPG, PNG, PDF, CSV, and XLS files). Supplemental Info Figures - contains subfolders for Figures S1-S57, Schemes S1-S2 (as TIFF, JPG, PDF, XLS, TXT and PNG files).