The plastics in our satellites, automobiles, and electronics might all be living their second, 25th, or 250th lives one day in the not-too-distant future.
According to new research from the University of Colorado Boulder that was published in Nature Chemistry, a class of tough plastics that are frequently used in the aerospace and microelectronics industries can be chemically broken down into their most fundamental building blocks and then formed once more into the same material.
It represents a significant advancement in the development of fully recyclable and repairable network polymers, which are notoriously difficult to recycle due to their construction to maintain shape and integrity under adverse conditions such as extreme heat. The study shows that this kind of plastic can be broken down and made over and over again without changing its physical properties.
Wei Zhang, the study’s lead author and chair of the chemistry department, said, “We are thinking outside the box, about different ways of breaking chemical bonds.” “Our chemical methods can be used to make new technologies and materials and to solve the problem with plastics that is going on right now.”
Based on what they found, it might be possible to fully break down and rebuild the chemical bonds of other plastics by looking at their chemical structures again. This would make it possible to make more plastics that can be used in everyday life in a circular fashion.
Due to their extreme convenience, functionality, and affordability, plastics were widely used in nearly every industry and aspect of life in the middle of the 20th century. But a half century later, after exponential growth in both demand and production, plastics now pose a serious threat to both human and environmental health. Large quantities of oil and the burning of fossil fuels are needed for the production of plastics. Every year, disposable plastics produce hundreds of millions of tons of waste, which ends up as microplastics in landfills, oceans, and even our bodies.
In the twenty-first century, it is important to cut down on plastic pollution and fossil fuel emissions.
Polymers used in conventional recycling processes are mechanically broken down into powders, burned, or dissolved using bacterial enzymes. The intention is to leave behind more manageable pieces that can be put to other uses. Consider clothing or shoes made from recycled plastic water bottles or rubber tires. Although it is no longer the same material, it does not end up in a landfill or the ocean.
What if, however, you could create a new object from the same material? What if recycling gave plastics a repeat experience rather than just a second chance at life?
In fact, Zhang and his coworkers have done just that: They have reversed a chemical process and found they can both break and form new chemical bonds in a particularly high-performance polymer.
According to Zhang, “This chemistry can also be dynamic, reversible, and that bond can be reformed.” We’re considering an alternative approach to creating the same backbone but from different angles.
They accomplish this by disassembling the polymer—”poly” meaning “many”—back into its individual molecules, or monomers—a process known as reversible or dynamic chemistry. This most recent technique is particularly innovative because it not only produces a new class of polymer materials that, like Legos, are simple to construct, disassemble, and rebuild repeatedly, but also allows the method to be used on existing polymers, particularly those that are difficult to recycle.
Additionally, prepared for commercialization, these novel chemical techniques are compatible with current industrial production.
According to Zhang, it’s crucial to understand how to convert, upcycle, and recycle older polymers, but it can also be very helpful for future plastics design and development. Using our new method, we can make a lot of new materials, some of which may be like the plastics we use every day.
According to Zhang, the natural world serves as an inspiration for this development in closed-loop recycling of plastic because it already includes humans, animals, and plants in a global recycling system.
Why cannot we produce our materials in the same manner?
