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Although catalytic upcycling to value-added chemicals holds promise, its industrial adoption is hindered by additive-induced catalyst deactivation, feedstock heterogeneity, process inflexibility and limited economic viability\n                    <jats:sup>4<\/jats:sup>\n                    . Here we report a catalyst-free upcycling strategy that makes use of in situ generation of hydroxyl radicals at microdroplet interfaces\n                    <jats:sup>5\u20138<\/jats:sup>\n                    to enable oxidative cleavage of diverse waste plastics\u2014from polyolefins to rubbers\u2014into carboxylic acids under mild conditions. By eliminating catalyst-dependent pathways, this approach circumvents key challenges of catalyst design and poisoning, while substantially lowering technical barriers and costs\n                    <jats:sup>9,10<\/jats:sup>\n                    . Our method achieves complete conversion of polyethylene (PE) with selectivity to short-chain diacids approaching 69% under relatively mild conditions and demonstrated broad applicability to mixed commercial plastics, with scalability demonstrated up to the 300-g scale. Radical intermediate analysis reveals the crucial role of H\n                    <jats:sub>2<\/jats:sub>\n                    O in mediating a unique oxidative degradation mechanism: sequential hydroxyl radical addition to alkyl radicals, distinct from classical liquid-phase aerobic oxidation of alkane\n                    <jats:sup>11<\/jats:sup>\n                    . This interfacial radical-mediated strategy enables sustainable polymer upcycling with minimal infrastructure. More broadly, this work provides a scalable blueprint for the first, to our knowledge, industrial implementation of microdroplet chemistry, with transformative implications for oxidation processes in organic acid synthesis and beyond.\n                  <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1038\/s41586-026-10746-7","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]],"date-time":"2026-07-15T15:01:35Z","timestamp":1784127695000},"page":"917-924","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Catalyst-free, microdroplet-mediated waste plastic conversion to diacids"],"prefix":"10.1038","volume":"655","author":[{"given":"Ruiliang","family":"Gao","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Liwei","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9990-7064","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Richard J.","family":"Lewis","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hao","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhiyan","family":"Pan","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Yage","family":"Zhang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zekai","family":"Yu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Zhiqiang","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiaolin","family":"Guo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Xiangbowen","family":"Du","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wencong","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Minghang","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Shipan","family":"Liang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9955-6249","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Bing","family":"Lu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Ichiro","family":"Daigo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2047-3465","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Shanjun","family":"Mao","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8885-1560","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Graham J.","family":"Hutchings","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8043-5757","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yong","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,15]]},"reference":[{"key":"10746_CR1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"eadh1675","DOI":"10.1126\/sciadv.adh1675","volume":"10","author":"S Moon","year":"2024","unstructured":"Moon, S. et al. 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