Upcycling of plastic wastes and biomass to mechanically robust yet recyclable energy-harvesting materials

Abstract

Plastic pollution is a growing global concern. From the perspective of decarbonization throughout entire lifecycle, the development of mechanically robust yet recyclable materials from sustainable building blocks is highly desirable but remains challenging. Here, we propose a supramolecular in situ assembly strategy to fabricate sustainable materials by integrating reclaimed glass fiber fabric (RGFF, from wind turbine blades wastes) and bio-based epoxidized soybean oil (ESO) vitrimer. The key principle of the design is the construction of supramolecular interface with densely aggregated hydrogen bonds between the resin residual on RGFF and ESO vitrimer, which facilitates the in situ assembly process to form a homogeneous and dense cartilage-like interwoven structure. The resulted materials show not only excellent mechanical properties during service (tensile strength of 152.9 MPa and toughness of 33.9 MJ m−3), but also desirable recyclability in terms of end-of-life options. Furthermore, the favorable dielectric modulation (promote 11.6 times in surface potential) allows the materials to be used in efficient and durable triboelectric energy harvesting. This upcycling strategy to integrate plastic wastes with biomass exhibits 44 %－49 % reduction in carbon footprint, opening up an avenue for sustainable materials as promising alternatives to petrochemical plastics.