The expansion and upgrading of power grid systems is bringing rapid development to the regional economy along with high pressure to the ecological environment due to the difficult degradation of insulation protective cover in the surged retired cables, such as cross-linked polyethylene (XLPE) for the high-voltage power system. Thus, developing efficient and environmentally friendly technology for the recycling of insulating layer in retired cables has become an urgent challenge. To address such issue, homogeneous Ru-based catalysts loaded on different supports with rare earth metal (La, Pr, Y, and Ce) compounds are synthesized via a hydrothermal coprecipitation strategy for thermal catalytic cracking. Experimental results indicate that among the four rare earth elements, the Ru/La2O2CO3 catalyst possesses abundant strong Lewis acid sites and highly dispersed Ru active sites, demonstrating excellent catalytic performance. Optimal performance was achieved around a Ru loading of 3 wt%, and experimental results indicate that the catalyst achieved a 98.4% conversion rate for crosslinked polyethylene and a 42.5% liquid product yield at 400 °C, containing a portion of high-value-added C5–C21 hydrocarbon components. Furthermore, the catalyst shows excellent stability with a maintained conversion rate of 93.8% after five cycles, demonstrating the catalytic enhancement of rare earth compounds and offering new insights for developing efficient thermal catalytic cracking of waste polymers.
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