Circular olefin copolymers made de novo from ethylene and α-olefins

Autor: Xing-Wang Han, Xun Zhang, Youyun Zhou, Aizezi Maimaitiming, Xiu-Li Sun, Yanshan Gao, Peizhi Li, Boyu Zhu, Eugene Y.-X. Chen, Xiaokang Kuang, Yong Tang
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Nature Communications, Vol 15, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2041-1723
DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45219-w
Popis: Abstract Ethylene/α-olefin copolymers are produced in huge scale and widely used, but their after-use disposal has caused plastic pollution problems. Their chemical inertness made chemical re/upcycling difficult. Ideally, PE materials should be made de novo to have a circular closed-loop lifecycle. However, synthesis of circular ethylene/α-olefin copolymers, including high-volume, linear low-density PE as well as high-value olefin elastomers and block copolymers, presents a particular challenge due to difficulties in introducing branches while simultaneously installing chemical recyclability and directly using industrial ethylene and α-olefin feedstocks. Here we show that coupling of industrial coordination copolymerization of ethylene and α-olefins with a designed functionalized chain-transfer agent, followed by modular assembly of the resulting AB telechelic polyolefin building blocks by polycondensation, affords a series of ester-linked PE-based copolymers. These new materials not only retain thermomechanical properties of PE-based materials but also exhibit full chemical circularity via simple transesterification and markedly enhanced adhesion to polar surfaces.
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