The development of a completely recyclable AND biodegradable polymer is being claimed by Colorado State University chemists – paving a potential new road to truly sustainable, petroleum-free plastics and fibres.
The innovation is from the lab of professor of chemistry Eugene Chen, which has synthesized a polyester that, when simply reheated for an hour, converts back to its original molecular state, ready for reuse.
Recyclable, in the purest sense of the word.
The starting feedstock was a biorenewable monomer that textbooks and journal papers had declared non-polymerizable, or that could not be bonded into large molecules – polymers – typically required for use as a material.
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