Toward Infinitely Recyclable Plastics Derived from Renewable Cyclic Esters

Tang, Xiao‐Yan; Chen, Eugene Y.‐X.

doi:10.1016/j.chempr.2018.10.011

Cited by 293 publications

(196 citation statements)

References 147 publications

(162 reference statements)

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“…To address this global challenge, the design of next-generation polymers must consider their afterlife issues and establish closedloop life cycles toward a circular economy (4)(5)(6)(7)(8). In this context, the development of chemically recyclable polymers that can be depolymerized back to their monomer building blocks in high selectivity and purity for virgin-quality polymer reproduction offers a circular economy approach to address these dire environmental and economic issues (9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16). For example, the ring-opening polymerization (ROP) of unstrained -butyrolactone (GBL) leads to polyester poly(GBL) that can be completely depolymerized back to GBL in quantitative purity and yield with a low energy input (17,18).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-performance pan-tactic polythioesters with intrinsic crystallinity and chemical recyclability

et al. 2020

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Three types of seemingly unyielding trade-offs have continued to challenge the rational design for circular polymers with both high chemical recyclability and high-performance properties: depolymerizability/performance, crystallinity/ductility, and stereo-disorder/crystallinity. Here, we introduce a monomer design strategy based on a bridged bicyclic thiolactone that produces stereo-disordered to perfectly stereo-ordered polythiolactones, all exhibiting high crystallinity and full chemical recyclability. These polythioesters defy aforementioned trade-offs by having an unusual set of desired properties, including intrinsic tacticity-independent crystallinity and chemical recyclability, tunable tacticities from stereo-disorder to perfect stereoregularity, as well as combined high-performance properties such as high thermal stability and crystallinity, and high mechanical strength, ductility, and toughness.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

High-performance pan-tactic polythioesters with intrinsic crystallinity and chemical recyclability

et al. 2020

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“…A better possibility is chemical recycling 5,6 , e.g. depolymerization of a polymer into its constituent monomers in order to re-polymerize the same virgin quality polymer 7 , or, at best, co-polymers that are better than the starting materials (upcycling) 8 , albeit with a certain degree of similarity between the recycled materials and the final products 7,9 . Recycling a material (and hence a polymer) into the same material is the current paradigm in recycling.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nature-inspired Circular-economy Recycling (NaCRe) for Proteins: Proof of Concept

Giaveri

Schmitt

Julià

et al. 2020

Preprint

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In 2070, 1012 Kg of polymer-based materials (i.e. plastics) might be produced yearly, posing one of the greatest challenges that humanity has to face. Even though natural polymers, such as proteins and nucleic acids, are more abundant than synthetic ones, they are sustainable. The key property of such natural polymers is that they are sequence-defined. This allows for recycling to start with depolymerization into monomers, and end in the re-assembly of new polymers of arbitrarily different sequence. This process breaks a common recycling paradigm that a material is recycled only into itself. An organism digests proteins into amino acids. These are re-assembled into new proteins whose identity depends on the cell’s needs at the time of protein synthesis. Here we show that the process described above is achievable extra-cellularly. Specifically, we depolymerized a mixture of different peptides and/or proteins into their amino acid constituents and used these amino acids to synthesize fluorescent proteins using an amino acid-free cell-free transcription-translation system. We were successful in recycling proteins with high relevance in materials engineering (β-lactoglobulin films, used for water filtration, or silk fibroin solutions) into a biotechnologically relevant protein (green fluorescent protein). The potential long-term impact of this approach to recycling lies in its compatibility with circular-economy models where raw materials remain in use as long as possible, thus reducing the burden on the planet.

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“…The annual global production of plastics has increased more than 20-fold since 1964, reaching 348 million metric tons in 2017. 1 The rapid accumulation of petroleum-based plastic wastes has created one of the greatest environmental crises in the world. 2 Single-use plastics have been banned in Europe, while other countries (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Xiong,1 Wenying Chang,1 Dong Shi,1 Lijiang Yang,2 Ziyou Tian,1 Hao Wang,1 Zhengchu Zhang,1 Xuhao Zhou,1 Erqiang Chen, 1,* and Hua Lu1,* 1 Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, Center for Soft Matter Science and Engineering, Key Laboratory of Polymer Chemistry and Physics of Ministry of Republic of China Email: H.L. : chemhualu@pku.edu.cn; E.Q.C.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Geminal Dimethyl Substitution Enables Controlled Polymerization of Penicillamine-Derived β-Thiolactones and Reversed Depolymerization

Xiong¹,

Wang²,

Dong³

et al. 2020

Preprint

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To access infinitely recyclable plastics, one key is to design thermodynamically neutral systems based on dynamic bonds for easy manipulation of the polymerization and the reverse depolymerization under low energy cost. Here, we present the controlled ring-opening polymerization of various penicillamine-derived β-thiolactones and the highly specific depolymerization of the resultant polythioesters (PNR-PenTE) for complete monomer recycling. The gem-dimethyl group confers better ROP control by reducing the activity of the chain-end thiolate groups and stabilizing the thioester linkages in the polymer backbone. High molar mass and narrow dispersity PNR-PenTE are conveniently accessible at room temperature bearing well-defined end groups and tunable side chains. PNR-PenTE can be tailored with water solubility, and/or be easily fabricated into persistent films or fibers with interesting thermal and mechanical properties. Most importantly, PNR-PenTE can be recycled to pristine enantiopure β-thiolactones at >95% conversion in a well-controlled unzipping fashion within min to hours at room temperature. Overall, this work may streamline the rapid development of a wide range of polythioesters with immense application potential as self-immolative building blocks, high value biomaterials, and sacrificial domain for nanolithography.

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Toward Infinitely Recyclable Plastics Derived from Renewable Cyclic Esters

Cited by 293 publications

References 147 publications

High-performance pan-tactic polythioesters with intrinsic crystallinity and chemical recyclability

High-performance pan-tactic polythioesters with intrinsic crystallinity and chemical recyclability

Nature-inspired Circular-economy Recycling (NaCRe) for Proteins: Proof of Concept

Geminal Dimethyl Substitution Enables Controlled Polymerization of Penicillamine-Derived β-Thiolactones and Reversed Depolymerization

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