美国科罗拉多州立大学Garret M. Miyake团队报道了化学可回收的聚烯烃类多嵌段聚合物。相关研究成果于2023年10月20日发表于国际顶尖学术期刊《科学》。

聚烯烃是生产的最重要、体积最大的塑料。不幸的是，塑料的大量使用以及缺乏有效的处理或回收选择，造成了一场塑料垃圾灾难。

该文中，研究人员报告了一种方法，通过用钌介导的环辛烯的开环复分解聚合合成的硬和软低聚物构建多嵌段聚合物，来制造具有不同机械性能的化学可回收类聚烯烃材料。多嵌段聚合物具有广泛的机械性能，从弹性体到塑性体再到热塑性塑料，同时集成了高熔融转变温度（Tm）和低玻璃化转变温度（Tg），使其适用于各种应用（Tm高达128°C，Tg低至–60°C）。使用后，不同的塑料可以组合在一起，并有效地分解回基本的硬和软构件，进行分离和再聚合，以实现闭环回收过程。

附：英文原文

Title: Chemically recyclable polyolefin-like multiblock polymers

Author: Yucheng Zhao, Emma M. Rettner, Katherine L. Harry, Zhitao Hu, Joel Miscall, Nicholas A. Rorrer, Garret M. Miyake

Issue&Volume: 2023-10-20

Abstract: Polyolefins are the most important and largest volume plastics produced. Unfortunately, the enormous use of plastics and lack of effective disposal or recycling options have created a plastic waste catastrophe. In this work, we report an approach to create chemically recyclable polyolefin-like materials with diverse mechanical properties through the construction of multiblock polymers from hard and soft oligomeric building blocks synthesized with ruthenium-mediated ring-opening metathesis polymerization of cyclooctenes. The multiblock polymers exhibit broad mechanical properties, spanning elastomers to plastomers to thermoplastics, while integrating a high melting transition temperature (Tm) and low glass transition temperature (Tg), making them suitable for use across diverse applications (Tm as high as 128°C and Tg as low as –60°C). After use, the different plastics can be combined and efficiently deconstructed back to the fundamental hard and soft building blocks for separation and repolymerization to realize a closed-loop recycling process.

DOI: adh3353

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adh3353