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COLORADO – Research on recyclable plastics is gaining further momentum with the publication of a new study which claims to have developed a ‘new’ generation of plastic that can be recycled over and over again.
It’s reported that the new material, a polythioester (PBTL), has an unusual set of physical properties which means it can be easily recycled by heating it for 24 hours at 100°C in the presence of a chemical catalyst to break it back down into its original components.
The study is the latest advance in this area of polymer chemistry to come out of the same laboratory, and also comes as regulators accelerate moves to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfill.
It also follows on from a similar, perhaps more promising development on recyclable polymers for the textile sector, that we covered back in May 2019.
