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High-performance plastic made from renewable oils is chemically recyclable by design

Plastics are invaluable materials, but they use up petroleum resources and persist in the environment. A high-performance plastic derived from renewable oils has been designed at the molecular level to be truly recyclable.
  1. Charlotte K. Williams

    1. Charlotte K. Williams is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QR, UK.

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  2. Georgina L. Gregory

    1. Georgina L. Gregory is in the Department of Chemistry, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QR, UK.

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Stark images of plastic mounting up in landfill sites and oceans has prompted a reconsideration of its use. Not only does plastic production consume depleting crude-oil resources, but most plastics are not effectively recycled and are environmental pollutants. There are many types of plastic, but all contain polymers. Solving the plastics problem will require many different approaches, but, fundamentally, the polymer chemistry of plastics must be redesigned to improve their sustainability1. Key targets are to diversify the raw materials used to make plastics beyond fossil fuels; to conserve the embedded energy and valuable resources in their structures; to fully maintain their useful properties through multiple recycling loops; and to design plastics whose molecular structure can be completely disassembled when necessary2–4. Writing in Nature, Häußler et al.5 report a plastic that has the potential to meet all of these criteria.

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Nature 590, 391-392 (2021)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-021-00349-9

References

  1. Science to Enable Sustainable Plastics. A White Paper from the 8th Chemical Sciences and Society Summit (CS3); available at go.nature.com/3pfImyw (2020).

  2. Rahimi, A. & García, J. M. Nature Rev. Chem. 1, 0046 (2017).

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  3. Coates, G. W. & Getzler, Y. D. Y. L. Nature Rev. Mater. 5, 501–516 (2020).

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  4. Fortman, D. J. et al. ACS Sustain. Chem. Eng. 6, 11145–11159 (2018).

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  5. Häußler, M., Eck, M., Rothauer, D. & Mecking, S. Nature 590, 423–427 (2021).

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  6. Ellen MacArthur Foundation. The New Plastics Eeconomy: Rethinking the Future of Plastics & Catalysing Action (2017).

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  7. Vollmer, I. et al. Angew. Chem. Int. Edn 59, 15402–15423 (2020).

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  8. Oblak, P., Gonzalez-Gutierrez, J., Zupančič, B., Aulova, A. & Emri, I. Polym. Degrad. Stab. 114, 133–145 (2015).

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  9. Stempfle, F., Ortmann, P. & Mecking, S. Chem. Rev. 116, 4597–4641 (2016).

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Competing Interests

C.K.W. is a director of Econic Technologies.

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