Depolymerisable thermoset polymer resins for circular composites.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Composites and other multi-materials are difficult to recover value from at end-of-life, leading to pollution, landfilling or downcycling. The separation of components is key to retaining individual components in their highest value condition. Inspired by vitrimeric thermosets, we instead seek fixed but degradable systems that can depolymerise to repolymerisable monomers and recover composite fillers without impacting surface functionality or fibre aspect ratio. New chemistries for both polyester and other polymeric backbones will be explored in both glass and carbon fibre4 systems. The work explores both synthetic techniques (classic Schlenk techniques through to scale up reactors), materials processing (including multiple lay-up and extrusion techniques) and characterization (microscopy, thermal, mechanical and chemical characterization) and incorporates the teams broad interdisciplinary expertise in evaluating and assessing sustainable materials.