Issue 3, 2024

The thermodynamics and kinetics of depolymerization: what makes vinyl monomer regeneration feasible?

Abstract

Depolymerization is potentially a highly advantageous method of recycling plastic waste which could move the world closer towards a truly circular polymer economy. However, depolymerization remains challenging for many polymers with all-carbon backbones. Fundamental understanding and consideration of both the kinetics and thermodynamics are essential in order to develop effective new depolymerization systems that could overcome this problem, as the feasibility of monomer generation can be drastically altered by tuning the reaction conditions. This perspective explores the underlying thermodynamics and kinetics governing radical depolymerization of addition polymers by revisiting pioneering work started in the mid-20th century and demonstrates its connection to exciting recent advances which report depolymerization reaching near-quantitative monomer regeneration at much lower temperatures than seen previously. Recent catalytic approaches to monomer regeneration are also explored, highlighting that this nascent chemistry could potentially revolutionize depolymerization-based polymer recycling in the future.

Graphical abstract: The thermodynamics and kinetics of depolymerization: what makes vinyl monomer regeneration feasible?

Associated articles

Article information

Article type
Perspective
Submitted
29 9 2023
Accepted
28 11 2023
First published
05 12 2023
This article is Open Access

All publication charges for this article have been paid for by the Royal Society of Chemistry
Creative Commons BY-NC license

Chem. Sci., 2024,15, 832-853

The thermodynamics and kinetics of depolymerization: what makes vinyl monomer regeneration feasible?

V. Lohmann, G. R. Jones, N. P. Truong and A. Anastasaki, Chem. Sci., 2024, 15, 832 DOI: 10.1039/D3SC05143A

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