Abstract
Converting commodity structural thermoplastics into dynamically crosslinked vitrimers.
Highlights
It is estimated that by 2050 the accumulated disposed plastic in the ocean will surpass marine life.[1]
We synthesized dynamically crosslinked thermoplastic polyolefins (TPOs) using epoxy– anhydride curing in the presence of transesteri cation catalyst Zn(acac)[2]
To demonstrate the broad applicability of our method, we used three different TPOs, abbreviated as PP, Polypropylene recycled bottles (PPb) and PEp, which are PP from a standard laboratory supplier, a PP bottle recovered from recycling (Fig. S1a†), and HDPE packaging collected from a waste bin (Fig. S1b†)
Summary
It is estimated that by 2050 the accumulated disposed plastic in the ocean will surpass marine life.[1]. A range of promising technologies are possible with vitrimers, which offer superior mechanical strength, creep resistance, weldability and shape memory, while maintaining the ease of processability.[14,17] Textiles, exible electronics, so robotics, and aerostructural and automotive parts are ubiquitous with such polymer systems, driving the need for upcycling commodity plastics via an economical industrial process to meet the unprecedented demand.[7,18] Thermoplastic polyole ns, such as PP and PE, are dominant among the synthetic polymers produced globally. The relatively low cost of production from inexpensive natural gas, and the resulting high usage, makes TPOs the most abundant plastic waste in today's world.[2] Several challenges must be overcome to develop an industrially viable process to chemically transform recycled thermoplastics into vitrimers: (1) the method of introduction of dynamically exchangeable crosslinks should be ‘general’, so that it can be applied to a wide variety of polymers, in particular, TPOs with their inert C–C backbone. The catalytic control in the transesteri cation reaction with a number of thermally stable catalysts, such as triazobicyclodecene (TBD), triphenylphosphine (PPh3), and zinc(II) acetylacetonate hydrate (Zn(acac)2), offers tremendous exibility in tuning the exchange kinetics and relaxation of dynamic covalent bonds.[29,30] In this paper, we want to explore the opportunities offered by transesteri cation bond exchange between ester and hydroxyl groups in functionalized TPOs
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