Waste Polystyrene Upcycling with Ball-Mill Grinding
발표자
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초록
내용
Converting plastic waste into new functional polymers via upcycling is an important approach to reducing plastic pollution. We report a ball-mill grinding (BMG)-based Birch reduction that is compatible with polystyrene (PS), PS derivatives, and several types of waste PS. Full conversion of the PS repeat units was achieved, yielding up to 79% dearomatized skipped diene repeat units, with minimal side reactions, in 1 min. High reduction performance was maintained with PS derivatives and reductive defunctionalization was observed in some cases. Full conversion of waste PS samples could be achieved on a gram scale without increasing the 1 min reaction time. We expect this work will lead to the development of sustainable upcycling method for PS waste plastics.