Chain-Shattering Polymers as Degradable Microdispersive Solid-Phase Extraction Sorbents

Making analytical chemistry recyclable

31 January 2023

A special type of polymer that can be readily reconstituted into its building blocks is promising for use in recyclable sorbents for analytical chemistry techniques.

Polymers are widely used in analytical chemistry methods, but they are generally discarded after use, which isn’t good for the environment. Researchers want to develop polymers that can be recycled without introducing contaminants that would affect later measurements.

Now, a team led by researchers from the University of La Laguna on Tenerife, Spain, has demonstrated just such a polymer. It can be used to adsorb chemicals in samples and that readily collapses into its monomers when irradiated with ultraviolet light.

The team used the degradable polymer to extract components from samples of tap, spring and waste water. They then used gas chromatography coupled to mass spectrometry to detect the adsorbed chemicals.

Supported content

References

1. Analytical Chemistry 94, 9065–9073 (2022). doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.2c01301