Polyolefins are everywhere in modern society on account of their numerous uses and low cost. The environmental impact of these materials is substantial as the majority are either discarded to landfills or as aqueous pollution, taking decades to degrade; a smaller amount are thermally degraded with poor energy recovery; and an even smaller portion are recycled to allow the waste to be reused. Common polyolefin plastics are mechanically recycled by shredding waste plastic, melt processing, and remodeling into new products. While this does continue the lifespan of the plastic, the mechanical properties of the new material are inferior to those of the virgin material, and often this process cannot be repeated due to further degrading mechanical properties after each round of recycling. We are developing a “closed loop” approach to the chemical recycling of modified polyolefins. Chemical recycling tends to allow for improved physical properties relative to mechanical recycling, but the majority of common polyolefins do not contain functional groups that allow chemical recycling to be a feasible solution. To solve this problem, we have synthesized polymers that have similar properties to commercial polyolefins but, on account of the presence of cleavable functionalities incorporated into the polymer backbone, can be depolymerized. The recovered telechelic polymer can subsequently be isolated and repolymerized to make a polyolefin-like material with identical properties to the original polymer or modified for a new purpose. Specifically, this poster presentation will detail telechelic polymer synthesis, their polymerization into polyolefin-like materials, and their chemical recycling.

Chemical recycling of polyolefin-like materials

Fall 2022 abstracts, posters, and presentations will launch in mid-September.

ACS Fall 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.