Closed-Loop Chemical Recycling System: From Conventional to New Plastic Materials
발표자
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초록
내용
The development of a closed-loop chemical recycling system is an essential solution to address the plastic-related environmental concerns. Tuning polymerization and depolymerization thermodynamics is the key to achieve efficient chemically recyclable polymer system. Here, at the outset, we designed a polycaprolactone system with chemical recyclability as well as tunable properties. Depolymerization of the polycaprolactone derivative using transesterification catalysts yields caprolactone monomer in a reasonable yield and purity, and proceeds from a commodity plastic mixture. Moreover, we tuned the depolymerization thermodynamics of the conventional plastic materials, i.e., poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) and polystyrene (PS), using a range of catalysts, which yields readily re-polymerizable monomers. In the case of PS, branching strategy was employed to achieve high molar mass polymer with comparable mechanical properties to common PS material from the low purity recycled monomer mixtures.