But now chemists at Colorado State University have made a new kind of plastic that can be recycled over and over again without losing its quality. The plastic, reported in the journal Science, can be broken down into its building blocks using mild temperatures and chemicals, and then built back up again to be as good as new. [...]
Eugene Chen and his colleagues have found a way to do that. They have developed a plastic that can be produced from a ring-shaped molecule in just a few minutes at room temperature and without the need for harsh solvents. The plastic is as strong as commercial plastics.
Under hot conditions, or at lower temperatures in the presence of a mild zinc chloride catalyst, the plastic returns to its ring-shaped building blocks and can be recycled into new material. “The polymers can be chemically recycled and reused, in principle, infinitely,” Chen said.
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