Plastics have become an indispensable part of our daily life, but the management of their wastes presents a global challenge. It is critical to develop an upcycling path for plastics beyond conventional recycling methods. To address the sustainable challenges of plastics, we have thus upcycled a commodity thermoplastic elastomer, polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-polystyrene (SEBS) toward higher-value materials. New tough reversible/recyclable adhesive polymers were designed and synthesized by incorporating dynamic covalent bonds of boronic ester into commodity triblock thermoplastic elastomers, that reversibly bind with various fillers and substrates. The spectroscopic measurements unveil versatile dynamic covalent binding of boronic ester with various hydroxy-terminated surfaces such as silica nanoparticles, aluminum, steel, and glass. Novel adhesives were thus designed by taking advantage of this unveiled feature of dynamic covalent binding with multiple interfaces. The designed multi-phase material exhibits exceptionally high adhesion strength and work of debonding with a rebonding capability, as well as outstanding mechanical, thermal, and chemical resistance properties. This is a stark contrast with the conventional commercial adhesives, which are single used thermoset materials, and do not have high adhesion strength and ductility simultaneously. Bonding and debonding at the interfaces dictate hybrid materials properties, and this revelation of tailored dynamic interactions with multiple interfaces will open up a new design of adhesives and hybrid materials. Dynamic covalent bonding on commodity thermoplastic via tailored vitrimer chemistry was further expanded for the preparation of reversible smart responsive materials. This presentation will summarize the development of these upcycled materials including reversible adhesives and smart materials.

Upcycling commodity thermoplastic through dynamic boronic ester crosslinking

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ACS Fall 2022

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