Themed collection Polymer Upcycling

Blair Brettmann, Marco A. Fraga, Monika Gosecka and Natalie Stingelin introduce the cross journal themed collection on Polymer Upcycling.

Bridging the gap between academia and industry in plastic recycling will accelerate innovation and deployment toward solving the global challenge of plastic waste management and establishing net zero carbon society.

This minireview focuses on potential catalytic recycling processes for the production of styrene and other valuable aromatics from polystyrene (PS) waste, and it aims to lay the ground for PS recyclability and long-term sustainable PS production.

The strategies implemented for upcycling thermoset waste are first reviewed, followed by their strengths and weaknesses; lastly, future directions are highlighted.

Materials research relating to bio-based polymers and composites has become the order of the day and several types of research are being undertaken on these materials.

Plastics and microplastics are major environmental pollutants due to wide applications and difficult degradations. Herein, we summarize several studies on degradations of (micro)plastics to value-added products and intermediates via photocatalysis.

Reactions of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) with a rhodium catalyst and H-donors reveal how reaction conditions can impact the selectivity for chloride removal, with sodium formate showing the highest selectivity for hydrodechlorination.

A simple, single stage process is reported for the creation of a recyclable thermoset material from readily available epoxy resins and aliphatic amines, crosslinked with diboronic esters.

Tandem hydrodechlorination/Friedel–Crafts alkylation of poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is achieved using silylium ion catalysts to prepare new styrenic copolymers of polyethylene.

The upcycling of waste polymers into novel materials with high added value is a vital task for modern chemical engineering.

The first working lithium-ion battery containing polymer electrolytes derived from waste poly(ethylene terephthalate) beverage bottles is demonstrated.

Chemical upcycling of plastic wastes into a new low-molecular-weight supramolecular adhesive with excellent performances.

Synergistic photo-driven plastic waste oxidation and CO₂ reduction on Bi₄V₂O₁₁ nanorods with abundant oxygen vacancies.

Bio-based degradable supramolecular plastics with a high fracture strength of 265 MPa and excellent water-resistance are fabricated through complexation of regenerated cellulose with tannic acid, and can be fully degraded under soil in ∼35 days.

Polymeric materials have become an integral part of our society, and their high demand has created a large quantity of polymers that end up in the waste stream.

Pt/SrTiO₃ nanoparticle catalysts have been synthesized by surface organometallic chemistry in solution on a 5 g scale. Pt/SrTiO₃ selectively and repeatedly upcycles isotactic polypropylene into uniform liquid products with M_n ∼ 200 Da.

A four-step method was applied to biomass and waste polysaccharides, obtaining char-based bifunctional catalysts active in CO₂ conversion into cyclic carbonates.

Block copolymers composed of poly(trimethylene carbonate) and polylactide can be processed at ambient temperature under pressure by a reversible pressure-induced phase transition between an ordered (solid) state and a disordered (melt/solid) state.

This study reports the synthesis and characterization of biobased CANs incorporating CF₃-activated aza-Michael bonds and ester groups showing remarkable reprocessing abilities and high activation energy.

For the first time, virgin and waste polyethylene (PE) was upcycled using exclusively free-radical methods into reprocessable, thermally stable, and creep-resistant PE covalent adaptable networks capable of dialkylamino disulfide dynamic chemistry.

Chemical and catalytic upcycling processes could help realize a circular plastics economy, but current models for testing mechanistic hypotheses and designing catalysts remain primitive.

Sustainable red light harvesting has been achieved in recyclable protein–surfactant–chromophores co-assembled bioplastics with high efficiency due to the efficient diffusion of triplet excited chromophores, and oxygen blockage by protein fibers.

Electronic waste (e-waste) recycling is one of the central frameworks of the circular economy.