Potential packaging polymer is simple to recycle

Abstract

Most plastics are recyclable but are not actually recycled. One way to encourage recycling is to make plastics from polymers that can be chemically recycled, or broken down into monomers that can be recovered and made into new polymers. At the American Chemical Society Fall 2021 meeting, Cornell University chemist Geoffrey W. Coates presented a polymer that can be broken down into monomers and recovered from a mixture of plastics ( Science 2021, DOI: 10.1126/science.abh0626 ). In his presentation last week, Coates noted that the polyacetal polymer is stable up to 325 °C. Once researchers combine this plastic with a strong acid catalyst and heat it above 73 °C, however, the polymer breaks down into its monomer constituents (shown). The monomers, including 1,3-dioxolane and derivatives, are liquids at this temperature. That makes it easy for the team to separate the monomers from a mixture of materials that don’t break down