Poor Solvents Improve Yield of Grafting-Through Radical Polymerization of OEO19MA

Industrial and Laboratory Technologies for the Chemical Recycling of Plastic Waste

Synthetic polymers play an indispensable role in modern society, finding applications across various sectors ranging from packaging, textiles, and consumer products to construction, electronics, and industrial machinery. Commodity plastics are cheap to produce, widely available, and versatile to meet diverse application needs. As a result, millions of metric tons of plastics are manufactured annually. However, current approaches for the chemical recycling of postconsumer plastic waste, primarily based on pyrolysis, lag in efficiency compared to their production methods. In recent years, significant research has focused on developing milder, economically viable methods for the chemical recycling of commodity plastics, which involves converting plastic waste back into monomers or transforming it into other valuable chemicals. This Perspective examines both industrial and cutting-edge laboratory-scale methods contributing to recent advancements in the field of chemical recycling.

Bottlebrush Networks: A Primer for Advanced Architectures

Bottlebrush networks (BBNs) are an exciting new class of materials with interesting physical properties derived from their unique architecture. While great strides have been made in our fundamental understanding of bottlebrush polymers and networks, an interdisciplinary approach is necessary for the field to accelerate advancements. This review aims to act as a primer to BBN chemistry and physics for both new and current members of the community. In addition to providing an overview of contemporary BBN synthetic methods, we developed a workflow and desktop application (LengthScale), enabling bottlebrush physics to be more approachable. We conclude by addressing several topical issues and asking a series of pointed questions to stimulate conversation within the community.

Polymer-Coated Covalent Organic Frameworks as Porous Liquids for Gas Storage

Several synthetic methods have recently emerged to develop high-surface-area solid-state organic framework-based materials into free-flowing liquids with permanent porosity. The fluidity of these porous liquid (PL) materials provides them with advantages in certain storage and transport processes. However, most framework-based materials necessitate the use of cryogenic temperatures to store weakly bound gases such as H2, temperatures where PLs lose their fluidity. Covalent organic framework (COF)-based PLs that could reversibly form stable complexes with H2 near ambient temperatures would represent a promising development for gas storage and transport applications. We report here the development, characterization, and evaluation of a material with these remarkable characteristics based on Cu(I)-loaded COF colloids. Our synthetic strategy required tailoring conditions for growing robust coatings of poly(dimethylsiloxane)-methacrylate (PDMS-MA) around COF colloids using atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP). We demonstrate exquisite control over the coating thickness on the colloidal COF, quantified by transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. The coated COF material was then suspended in a liquid polymer matrix to make a PL. CO2 isotherms confirmed that the coating preserved the general porosity of the COF in the free-flowing liquid, while CO sorption measurements using diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) confirmed the preservation of Cu(I) coordination sites. We then evaluated the gas sorption phenomenon in the Cu(I)-COF-based PLs using DRIFTS and temperature-programmed desorption measurements. In addition to confirming that H2 transport is possible at or near mild refrigeration temperatures with these materials, our observations indicate that H2 diffusion is significantly influenced by the glass-transition temperature of both the coating and the liquid matrix. The latter result underscores an additional potential advantage of PLs in tailoring gas diffusion and storage temperatures through the coating composition.

The thermodynamics and kinetics of depolymerization: what makes vinyl monomer regeneration feasible?

Depolymerization is potentially a highly advantageous method of recycling plastic waste which could move the world closer towards a truly circular polymer economy. However, depolymerization remains challenging for many polymers with all-carbon backbones. Fundamental understanding and consideration of both the kinetics and thermodynamics are essential in order to develop effective new depolymerization systems that could overcome this problem, as the feasibility of monomer generation can be drastically altered by tuning the reaction conditions. This perspective explores the underlying thermodynamics and kinetics governing radical depolymerization of addition polymers by revisiting pioneering work started in the mid-20th century and demonstrates its connection to exciting recent advances which report depolymerization reaching near-quantitative monomer regeneration at much lower temperatures than seen previously. Recent catalytic approaches to monomer regeneration are also explored, highlighting that this nascent chemistry could potentially revolutionize depolymerization-based polymer recycling in the future.

Reversed Controlled Polymerization (RCP): Depolymerization from Well-Defined Polymers to Monomers

Controlled polymerization methods are well-established synthetic protocols for the design and preparation of polymeric materials with a high degree of precision over molar mass and architecture. Exciting recent work has shown that the high end-group fidelity and/or functionality inherent in these techniques can enable new routes to depolymerization under relatively mild conditions. Converting polymers back to pure monomers by depolymerization is a potential solution to the environmental and ecological concerns associated with the ultimate fate of polymers. This perspective focuses on the emerging field of depolymerization from polymers synthesized by controlled polymerizations including radical, ionic, and metathesis polymerizations. We provide a critical review of current literature categorized according to polymerization technique and explore numerous concepts and ideas which could be implemented to further enhance depolymerization including lower temperature systems, catalytic depolymerization, increasing polymer scope, and controlled depolymerization.

A Thermodynamic Roadmap for the Grafting-through Polymerization of PDMS11MA

Grafting-through atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP) was used to polymerize a sterically hindered poly(dimethylsiloxane) methacrylate (PDMS₁₁MA, M_n = 1000) macromonomer to high conversion as a function of temperature, solvent, initial monomer concentration, and pressure. Higher polymerization yields were obtained when polymerizations were conducted at (i) lower temperature (T), (ii) in a poor solvent for the side chain, (iii) higher initial monomer concentration ([M]₀), and (iv) higher pressure by mitigating the contribution of the equilibrium monomer concentration ([M]_eq). The enthalpy of polymerization (ΔH_p) and entropy of polymerization (ΔS_p) were more negative in poor solvents. Polymerizations at ambient pressure required higher [M]₀, use of a poor solvent, and lower temperatures to reach higher conversion with good control, whereas high pressure ATRP (HP-ATRP) displayed better control under dilute conditions. Grafting-through polymerization at high P and higher [M]₀ was less controlled, plausibly due to limited solubility and mobility of the copper catalyst in the highly viscous medium.