A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers

Chemical depolymerization has been identified as a promising approach towards recycling of plastic waste. However, complete depolymerization may be energy intensive with complications in purification. In this work, we have demonstrated upcycling of mixed plastic waste comprising a mixture of polyest...

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Main Authors: Ng, Joseph Kok Wei, Lim, Jacob Song Kiat, Gupta, Nupur, Dong, Bing Xue, Hu, Chun Po, Hu, Jingdan, Hu, Xiao
Other Authors: School of Materials Science and Engineering
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: 2023
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Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170949
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Institution: Nanyang Technological University
Language: English
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spelling sg-ntu-dr.10356-1709492023-10-13T15:46:45Z A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers Ng, Joseph Kok Wei Lim, Jacob Song Kiat Gupta, Nupur Dong, Bing Xue Hu, Chun Po Hu, Jingdan Hu, Xiao School of Materials Science and Engineering Rolls-Royce@NTU Corporate Lab Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute Temasek Laboratories @ NTU Engineering::Materials Vitrimers Plastic Waste Chemical depolymerization has been identified as a promising approach towards recycling of plastic waste. However, complete depolymerization may be energy intensive with complications in purification. In this work, we have demonstrated upcycling of mixed plastic waste comprising a mixture of polyester, polyamide, and polyurethane through a reprocessable vitrimer of the depolymerized oligomers. Using poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) as a model polymer, we first demonstrated partial controlled depolymerization, using glycerol as a cleaving agent, to obtain branched PET oligomers. Recovered PET (RPET) oligomer was then used as a feedstock to produce a crosslinked yet reprocessable vitrimer (vRPET) despite having a wide molecular weight distribution using a solventless melt processing approach. Crosslinking and dynamic interactions were observed through rheology and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Tensile mechanical studies showed no noticeable decrease in mechanical strength over multiple repeated melt processing cycles. Consequently, we have clearly demonstrated the applicability of the above method to upcycle mixed plastic wastes into vitrimers and reprocessable composites. This work also afforded insights into a potentially viable alternative route for utilization of depolymerized plastic/mixed plastic waste into crosslinked vitrimer resins manifesting excellent mechanical strength, while remaining reprocessable/ recyclable for cyclical lifetime use. Published version 2023-10-09T05:51:33Z 2023-10-09T05:51:33Z 2023 Journal Article Ng, J. K. W., Lim, J. S. K., Gupta, N., Dong, B. X., Hu, C. P., Hu, J. & Hu, X. (2023). A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers. Communications Chemistry, 6(1), 158-. https://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s42004-023-00949-8 2399-3669 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170949 10.1038/s42004-023-00949-8 37500812 2-s2.0-85166003176 1 6 158 en Communications Chemistry © The Author(s) 2023. Open Access. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/. application/pdf
institution Nanyang Technological University
building NTU Library
continent Asia
country Singapore
Singapore
content_provider NTU Library
collection DR-NTU
language English
topic Engineering::Materials
Vitrimers
Plastic Waste
spellingShingle Engineering::Materials
Vitrimers
Plastic Waste
Ng, Joseph Kok Wei
Lim, Jacob Song Kiat
Gupta, Nupur
Dong, Bing Xue
Hu, Chun Po
Hu, Jingdan
Hu, Xiao
A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
description Chemical depolymerization has been identified as a promising approach towards recycling of plastic waste. However, complete depolymerization may be energy intensive with complications in purification. In this work, we have demonstrated upcycling of mixed plastic waste comprising a mixture of polyester, polyamide, and polyurethane through a reprocessable vitrimer of the depolymerized oligomers. Using poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) as a model polymer, we first demonstrated partial controlled depolymerization, using glycerol as a cleaving agent, to obtain branched PET oligomers. Recovered PET (RPET) oligomer was then used as a feedstock to produce a crosslinked yet reprocessable vitrimer (vRPET) despite having a wide molecular weight distribution using a solventless melt processing approach. Crosslinking and dynamic interactions were observed through rheology and dynamic mechanical analysis (DMA). Tensile mechanical studies showed no noticeable decrease in mechanical strength over multiple repeated melt processing cycles. Consequently, we have clearly demonstrated the applicability of the above method to upcycle mixed plastic wastes into vitrimers and reprocessable composites. This work also afforded insights into a potentially viable alternative route for utilization of depolymerized plastic/mixed plastic waste into crosslinked vitrimer resins manifesting excellent mechanical strength, while remaining reprocessable/ recyclable for cyclical lifetime use.
author2 School of Materials Science and Engineering
author_facet School of Materials Science and Engineering
Ng, Joseph Kok Wei
Lim, Jacob Song Kiat
Gupta, Nupur
Dong, Bing Xue
Hu, Chun Po
Hu, Jingdan
Hu, Xiao
format Article
author Ng, Joseph Kok Wei
Lim, Jacob Song Kiat
Gupta, Nupur
Dong, Bing Xue
Hu, Chun Po
Hu, Jingdan
Hu, Xiao
author_sort Ng, Joseph Kok Wei
title A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
title_short A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
title_full A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
title_fullStr A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
title_full_unstemmed A facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
title_sort facile alternative strategy of upcycling mixed plastic waste into vitrimers
publishDate 2023
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/170949
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