Stronger Plastics in Second Life

Group of scientist from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill discovered the way of recycling plastics which will make them durable and tougher than the original(non-cycled) one. As a drive to increase plastic recycling and reuse, it could be a breakthrough development. 

Also as Frank Leibharth, who is an assistant professor of chemistry in the UNC College of Arts & Sciences, stated this method could be an amazing incentive to recycle plastic-“it is like turning trash into gold”.

Figure 1. Research chemists (Photo : Jon Gardiner) © UNC News

You might know that carbon-hydrogen bonds are some of the strongest chemical bonds in nature. That kind of stability situation creates difficulty in turning natural products into medicines and challenging to recycle plastics.

However by altering these carbon-hydrogen bonds that are common in polymers, the fundamental structure for modern plastic utilized in most of the daily things such as grocery bags, soda and water bottles, the life span of polymers could be expanded beyond single-use plastic.

Figure 2. UNC-Chapel Hill Team (© UNC News)

With a newly identified reagent that is able to strip hydrogen atoms off from medicinal compounds and polymers, the UNC chemists achieved to establish new bonds in zones where previously considered unreactive.

To begin with, they used plastic foam packaging utilized to protect electronics during shipping term that otherwise ends up in landfill areas. These post-consumer samples were provided by High Cube LLC, a Durham, N.C., recycling company. The foam is made of a low-density plastic called a commercial polyolefin.

By selectively extracting hydrogen atoms from polyolefin, the chemists found a way to lengthen the life of the single-use plastic into a high-value plastic a.ka. ionomer. Popular ionomers are Dow’s SURLYN^TM, a go-to material used in a wide variety of food packaging.

To learn more more about the process , you can find the article in the references

References

Thank you for reading !