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  • Primer
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Upcycling chlorinated waste plastics

Nature Reviews Methods Primers volume 3, Article number: 44 (2023) Cite this article

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Abstract

Over the past decade, chlorinated plastics have been widely used as an indispensable thermoplastic owing to their low cost, durability, wide processing adaptability and good overall performance in plenty of end-use applications. One effective pathway to reduce plastic white pollution is to upcycle chlorinated plastics for added value and versatility rather than recycle them. This Primer focuses on upcycling technologies for converting chlorinated waste plastics into additional valuable products and endowing them with added versatility. We describe several upcycling strategies for the conversion of chlorinated waste plastics into value-added products, which involve pretreatment to reduce the chlorine content; pyrolysis, carbonization or catalytic cracking; or chemical modifications such as substitution with functional groups and plasticizers, and grafting with other polymers. Additionally, solvent-based processing is discussed, including solvent extraction, and dissolution, gel casting and solvothermal treatments are also included. This Primer aims to stimulate both research and industry to produce high-quality and high-value chemicals from upcycled chlorinated plastics that are suitable for value-added manufacture to provide the necessary environmental and economic push in the context of carbon neutrality and sustainable development.

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Fig. 1: Overview of conventional chemical recovery and representative upcycling methods for the treatment of chlorinated thermoplastics.
Fig. 2: Chemical upcycling of PVC.
Fig. 3: PVC degradation mechanisms.
Fig. 4: Upcycling chlorinated plastics for added value and versatility.
Fig. 5: Life cycle assessment and output properties measurement.
Fig. 6: Upcycling chlorinated plastics for diverse applications.

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Acknowledgements

F.H. acknowledges support from the Key Research Program of Frontier Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Grant No. QYZDJ-SSW-JSC013). T.Z. acknowledges support from the Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, the Materials Research Institute and the Huck Institutes of the Life Sciences at Pennsylvania State University. T.L. and S.X. acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation (Grant No. 22205254 and 51922103). T.L. also acknowledges the support from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFA0210600) and Shanghai Pilot Program for Basic Research, Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The authors thank Modor Intelligence, McKinsey & Company and the PVC Association for providing global polyvinyl chloride (PVC) market and recovery data. Furthermore, the authors thank the reviewers for their time and efforts in improving this work.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Shumao Xu, Zhen Han.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of High-Performance Ceramics and Superfine Microstructure, Shanghai Institute of Ceramics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, P.R. China

    Shumao Xu, Zhen Han, Kaidi Yuan, Peng Qin, Wei Zhao & Fuqiang Huang

  2. Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Center for Neural Engineering, The Pennsylvania State University, State College, PA, USA

    Shumao Xu & Tao Zhou

  3. Zhongke Institute of Strategic Emerging Materials, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Yixing, P.R. China

    Wei Zhao & Fuqiang Huang

  4. School of Materials Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P.R. China

    Tianquan Lin

  5. Zhangjiang Institute for Advanced Study, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, P.R. China

    Tianquan Lin

  6. Beijing National Laboratory for Molecular Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Rare Earth Materials Chemistry and Applications, College of Chemistry and Molecular Engineering, Peking University, Beijing, P.R. China

    Fuqiang Huang

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Contributions

Introduction (S.X., Z.H., K.Y., P.Q., T.Z. and F.H.); Experimentation (S.X., Z.H., W.Z., T.Z. and F.H.); Results (S.X., T.Z. and F.H.); Applications (S.X., T.Z. and F.H.); Reproducibility and data deposition (S.X., T.L., T.Z. and F.H.); Limitations and optimizations (S.X., Z.H., K.Y., P.Q., W.Z., T.L., T.Z. and F.H.); Outlook (S.X., K.Y., P.Q., T.Z. and F.H.).

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Tao Zhou or Fuqiang Huang.

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Glossary

Bio-accumulative toxicity

Toxins that persist and accumulate in the fatty tissues of animals and humans over time.

Circular plastic recycling

Maintaining the economic value of plastics in a closed-loop system rather than using them just once and then disposing of them.

Dehydrochlorination

An elimination process in which HCl is removed to form olefins.

Hydrodechlorination

A substitution process in which chlorine is replaced by hydrogen with the help of electron donors such as a noble metal, metal oxides and silylium.

Pyro-gasification

Pyro-gasification of plastic waste at 500–700 °C is based on the same natural waste fermentation as anaerobic digestion, with a small amount of oxygen introduced to enable the thermochemical process while preventing combustion.

Solvent processing

Processing that generally involves using solvents to physically dissolve reactants or catalysts, or to serve as a reactive compound to produce novel mixtures or new chemicals.

Supercritical H2O pyrolysis

A process in which plastic waste is heated in a pressurized environment of supercritical water, resulting in the breakdown of the plastic into smaller molecules.

Syndiotactic sequences

Sequences of monomers that are arranged in a specific order and have a regular arrangement of substituents, resulting in a highly crystalline polymer structure.

Thermosetting polymers

Polymers that form a permanent bond and become rigid when heated.

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Xu, S., Han, Z., Yuan, K. et al. Upcycling chlorinated waste plastics. Nat Rev Methods Primers 3, 44 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43586-023-00227-w

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