New route to recyclable polymers from plants
A transparent film made from the new recyclable polymer developed in this study (Photo: Feng Li)
March 21, 2024 – Researchers at Hokkaido University say to have taken a significant step forward in the drive to make recyclable yet stable plastics from plant materials. They developed a convenient and versatile method to make a variety of polymers from chemicals derived from plant cellulose; crucially, these polymers can be fully recycled. The method was published in the journal ACS Macro Letters.
Cellulose is one of the most abundant components of biomass derived from plants, being a key part of the tough cell walls surrounding all plant cells. It can be readily obtained from plant wastes, such as straw and sawdust. Cellulose is a long-chain polysaccharide polymer, meaning that it is composed of multiple sugar groups, specifically glucose, linked together by chemical bonds.
To make their new polymers, the Hokkaido team used two commercially available small molecules, levoglucosenone (LGO) and dihydrolevoglucosenone (Cyrene), which are made from cellulose. They developed novel chemical processes to convert LGO and Cyrene into a variety of unnatural polysaccharide polymers. Varying the precise chemical structure of the polymers offers the ability to generate different materials for a range of possible applications.
The research was published on March 18 in the Journal of Materials in Civil Engineering.
