Dynamic Crosslinking — Creative Chemistry Offers Solution for Recycling Mixed Plastics
New recycling method could help achieve the goal of reusing mixed plastic waste over multiple use cycles. iStock photo
We use plastics every day – from the polystyrene in food takeout containers and the polyethylene terephthalate in clothing fibers to high density polyethylene in shampoo bottles and polypropylene in bandages. Unfortunately, plastics used for common but disparate consumer products are often chemically and physically unique and incompatible. As a result, plastic waste is difficult to recycle once collected and mixed together and there is no easy way to re-process it into new plastics or other useful products. This means that most of our recyclable plastics are still going into landfills.
Thanks to new research from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) Consortium, that could be changing. In research described in the journal Nature, investigators at Colorado State University and Columbia University devised a new chemical recycling method that works by delivering dynamic crosslinkers into mixed plastic streams. When processed together with these small molecules, mixed plastics are made compatible with each other through the formation of a new multiblock copolymer that can be made into higher-value, re-processable materials.
Read more about this important recycling research, funded by DOE’s Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) and the Advanced Materials & Manufacturing Technologies Office (AMMTO).
BETO supports technology research, development, and demonstration to accelerate greenhouse gas emissions reductions through the cost-effective and sustainable use of biomass and waste feedstocks across the U.S. economy. BETO is part of DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.
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