Hundred recycled polymer will bring clean plastic

According to foreign media reports, made of how a non-oil plastic can also achieve the goal of recyclable and biodegradable? Chemists have found such a polymer, it can be synthesized a kind of useful material and then broken down into its original structure form and then reborn. Although some plastics can be recycled through continuous accumulation and was made into useful items, but most of them are to landfills or the oceans.

In order to find out to full recovery and degradation of plastic, of the university of Colorado (CSU), the researchers will look to the molecule compounds extracted from biomass. The U.S. department of energy will have this kind of material as 12 is most suited to replace one of the items of petrochemical products. Early in the scientific literature has gamma butyrolactone (GBL) the molecule is defined as a kind of very promising advanced plastic building materials. However, due to this kind of material with thermal stability, so it can’t happen polymerization.

So, professor of chemistry at the CSU Eugene Chen and colleagues Miao Hong postdoctoral research cooperation, finally they found a production process, it can not only use GBL generated polymers, but also can make the polymer to form different shapes, such as linear and circular. Involves both of metal catalyst and nonmetal catalyst, researchers will be heated to 220 degrees Celsius (for linear polymer) or 300 degrees Celsius (for cyclic polymers) and last an hour and then let the GBL back to the original state of molecules.

The research team, said on the chemical properties of it, GBL like commercial biological plastic P4HB, but because the latter is based on the bacteria production, so its cost is higher, the craft is also more complex. Team hope that their research can bring the industry a lower cost and simpler technique recyclable, biodegradable plastics.