Steadily increasing demand for plastics has fueled a global environmental crisis, resulting in growing need for space in landfills, accumulation of microplastics in the environment, and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from petrochemical precursors productions of these plastics. Most methods for recycling plastics are hindered by contamination, which limits the quality of the final product. Chemical depolymerization, however, has the potential to recover monomers and remove flame retardants, food residues, and other problematic contaminants. Polydiketoenamine (PDKs) are a class of next-generation polymers that can be chemically recycled to yield monomers of virgin quality, at a lower energy use than that required for common commodity polymer recycling. Additionally, PDKs can be selectively recovered from mixed-polymer waste, which make them attractive for applications where plastic separation is a barrier to recycling. In this presentation, application specific case studies will be discussed where the impact of replacing non-recyclable polyurethane with circular PDK is investigated. Factors influencing success of infinite-loop recycling of PDK will be highlighted, which have to be addressed before circular economy of plastics becomes a reality. Since the bedding and automotive sectors are two largest end-use industries of polyurethane in the United States, mattresses and automobiles will be explored as case studies. Analysis shows that cumulative GHG emissions of circular PDKs are approximately half of those obtained for scenarios considering polyurethane. However, the extent of circularity attained is dependent on several factors, including take-back systems, sorting process executed at the end-of-life of products. This work also emphasizes the significance of life cycle assessment in the early-stage development of circular polymers to facilitate the transition of bench science technology to application at scale.

Life cycle assessment of novel circular polymer to replace polyurethane foam in specific application-based case studies

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ACS Fall 2022

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