INS9-0423
A Tale of Two Additives: Mitigating Leaching While Improving Performance
Topic
S9. Polymer Technology for Sustainability
When and Where
Sep 30, 2026
10:45 - 11:10
Room 201
Session Chairs
Heejoong KIM
Presenter(s)
Guilhem De Hoe (University of Florida)
Co-Author(s)
Abstract
Plastic pollution, low levels of recycling, and ecotoxicological concerns regarding additives and microplastics have driven increased awareness about the unsustainable use of plastics in our modern society as well as their negative impacts on the environment. Most plastic additives are small molecules that are critical to plastic processing and/or product performance; however, they can migrate to interfaces and potentially leach into packaged products (during use) or the environment (when plastic waste is mismanaged). Our work addresses this challenge through two generations of innovative polymeric antioxidants that demonstrate comparable—or better—performance compared to conventional small-molecule counterparts while showing remarkably lowered leaching potential. We demonstrate this using polyethylene terephthalate (PET) as the plastic matrix, incorporating the additives by twin screw extrusion and subjecting the extrudate to a variety of performance tests including oxidative induction time (OIT), solvent immersion trials, and colorimetry. The additives are produced via simple free radical copolymerization of phenol-bearing monomers and styrene, and systematic variation of their size and composition enabled us to discern structure–property–performance trends in PET. Along the way, we demonstrate that a seemingly minor change in phenolic monomer structure results in a significant benefit to antioxidant efficacy without enhancing leaching potential. In more quantitative terms: we find the second generation of polymeric additives leach ≥ 90% less than the commercial benchmark while providing 2- to 5-fold enhancement of the OIT.
