One hundred years ago, artificial synthetic polymers / plastics were made. This material encourages humanity to improve their living standards like never before. It is a great material, but after use, carelessness and accidents it will eventually flow into the ocean and contaminate the world oceans. The drifting plastic contamination is pointed out as macro in the 1970s and micro / nano from the 2000s to the present. Is this all about pollution? This research has questioned the concept of “plastic does not decompose" and proves that "plastic decomposes". Virgin thermoplastic resin pellet (polystyrene, polycarbonate, epoxy resin, polyethylene terephthalate, and polyurethane) contains low molecular chemicals such as an unreacted monomer, a polymerization initiator, a stabilizer, a flame retardant, a light stabilizer, and a plasticizer. These chemicals were removed and purified by reprecipitation. The purified material was used as a sample, and thermal decomposition was performed in a temperature range of 30°C to 280°C. After the reaction at the fixed temperature for the fixed time, the heating medium (polyethylene glycol) was removed with water. Analyzed the low molecular part generated from plastic and was quantified at the μg kg-1 by GC / MS. The chemicals were monomers and oligomers that constitute each plastic. The activation energy of the thermoplastic was calculated by Arrhenius plot of the reaction rate constant calculated from the chemicals generated at each fixed temperature and fixed time. Using the degradation rate of polystyrene, the amount of styrene oligomers and polystyrene contaminating the world oceans was calculated. Drifting plastics are not only broken down into macro/ nano. Plastics are further decomposed into chemicals that basic unit of plastic and it has been revealed that they are new sources and the contamination of chemicals.

Low-temperature decomposition on thermoplastic and ocean contamination derived from debris plastic

2019 Fall National Meeting

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