TY - JOUR
T1 - Cleavable comonomers enable degradable, recyclable thermoset plastics
AU - Shieh, Peyton
AU - Zhang, Wenxu
AU - Husted, Keith E.L.
AU - Kristufek, Samantha L.
AU - Xiong, Boya
AU - Lundberg, David J.
AU - Lem, Jet
AU - Veysset, David
AU - Sun, Yuchen
AU - Nelson, Keith A.
AU - Plata, Desiree L.
AU - Johnson, Jeremiah A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2020/7/23
Y1 - 2020/7/23
N2 - Thermosets—polymeric materials that adopt a permanent shape upon curing—have a key role in the modern plastics and rubber industries, comprising about 20 per cent of polymeric materials manufactured today, with a worldwide annual production of about 65 million tons1,2. The high density of crosslinks that gives thermosets their useful properties (for example, chemical and thermal resistance and tensile strength) comes at the expense of degradability and recyclability. Here, using the industrial thermoset polydicyclopentadiene as a model system, we show that when a small number of cleavable bonds are selectively installed within the strands of thermosets using a comonomer additive in otherwise traditional curing workflows, the resulting materials can display the same mechanical properties as the native material, but they can undergo triggered, mild degradation to yield soluble, recyclable products of controlled size and functionality. By contrast, installation of cleavable crosslinks, even at much higher loadings, does not produce degradable materials. These findings reveal that optimization of the cleavable bond location can be used as a design principle to achieve controlled thermoset degradation. Moreover, we introduce a class of recyclable thermosets poised for rapid deployment.
AB - Thermosets—polymeric materials that adopt a permanent shape upon curing—have a key role in the modern plastics and rubber industries, comprising about 20 per cent of polymeric materials manufactured today, with a worldwide annual production of about 65 million tons1,2. The high density of crosslinks that gives thermosets their useful properties (for example, chemical and thermal resistance and tensile strength) comes at the expense of degradability and recyclability. Here, using the industrial thermoset polydicyclopentadiene as a model system, we show that when a small number of cleavable bonds are selectively installed within the strands of thermosets using a comonomer additive in otherwise traditional curing workflows, the resulting materials can display the same mechanical properties as the native material, but they can undergo triggered, mild degradation to yield soluble, recyclable products of controlled size and functionality. By contrast, installation of cleavable crosslinks, even at much higher loadings, does not produce degradable materials. These findings reveal that optimization of the cleavable bond location can be used as a design principle to achieve controlled thermoset degradation. Moreover, we introduce a class of recyclable thermosets poised for rapid deployment.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41586-020-2495-2
DO - 10.1038/s41586-020-2495-2
M3 - Article
C2 - 32699399
AN - SCOPUS:85088398200
SN - 0028-0836
VL - 583
SP - 542
EP - 547
JO - Nature
JF - Nature
IS - 7817
ER -