EAGER: CAS: Recyclable Polystyrene-Substitutes through On-demand Depolymerization

非技术摘要：这项研究的总体目标是建立以聚苯乙烯替代材料为基础的可回收热塑性塑料，因为聚苯乙烯本身制成的塑料通常不被回收。聚合物是几乎所有现代产品中使用的基本材料类别。然而，大多数使用过的聚合物产品被填埋、不当丢弃或焚烧，因此会对环境造成影响。聚合物回收的高成本问题表明，在不影响实际应用所需的物理性能的情况下，开发低成本和易回收的新聚合物是可取的。本研究旨在建立一种可以有效替代聚苯乙烯的新型可回收热塑性塑料。聚苯乙烯是产量最大的热塑性聚合物之一，被用作许多商品和特种应用的关键成分。然而，由于成本较高，聚苯乙烯几乎没有回收利用。拟议的研究将用新的高性能热塑性塑料取代不可回收的聚苯乙烯，这些热塑性塑料可以低成本从旧产品中回收。这项研究将通过建立聚苯乙烯替代可回收热塑性塑料来弥补聚苯乙烯废物造成的环境问题，从而极大地造福社会。计划的工作还包括针对K-12和本科生的教育活动，以加强他们对STEM领域的接触和了解，重点是聚合物和材料结构。技术概述：计划中的研究旨在通过实现低成本和易解聚来建立和研究可回收的热塑性聚合物作为聚苯乙烯的替代品。通过将具有较低上限温度的单体与其他控制聚合物性能的单体进行共聚，可以实现解聚能力。将合成一个可循环使用的共聚物库，研究该库的解聚特性，并表征共聚物的光学和粘弹性性质，以评价作为聚苯乙烯替代品的新型聚合物。这些努力将建立共聚物的化学组成和物理/解聚性能之间的关联。建立的可回收共聚物的关联式将作为目标应用的聚合物的设计标准。该项目将为研究生和本科生提供广泛的聚合物研究培训，范围从合成到表征和材料性能。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:The overall goal of this research is to establish recyclable thermoplastics that are based on polystyrene-substitute materials since plastics made of polystyrene itself are not commonly recycled. Polymers are an essential material class used in nearly all modern products. However, most of the used polymer products are landfilled, improperly discarded, or incinerated and thus have environmental consequences. The high-cost problem of polymer recycling suggests the desirability to develop new polymers with low-cost and facile recyclability without compromising physical properties needed for practical applications. This research aims to establish a new class of recyclable thermoplastics that can effectively substitute polystyrene. Polystyrene is one of the largest produced thermoplastic polymers used as a key component for numerous commodity and specialty applications. However, polystyrene has been barely recycled due to high cost. The proposed research will replace non-recyclable polystyrene with new high-performance thermoplastics that can be recycled from used products at low cost. This research will significantly benefit society by establishing polystyrene-substituting recyclable thermoplastics that could remedy the environmental problems caused by polystyrene wastes. The planned work also includes educational activities for K-12 and undergraduate students to enhance their exposure and understanding of STEM fields with a focus on polymers and materials structures. TECHNICAL SUMMARY:The planned research aims to establish and study recyclable thermoplastic polymers as polystyrene substitutes through implementing low-cost and facile depolymerizability. The depolymerizability will be achieved by copolymerizing monomer with a low-ceiling temperature and other monomer that controls the properties of polymers. A library of recyclable copolymers will be synthesized, depolymerization characteristics of the polymer library will be studied, and optical and viscoelastic properties of the copolymers will be characterized for evaluation of the new polymers as polystyrene substitutes and beyond. These efforts will establish the correlations between the chemical composition of the copolymers and the physical/depolymerization properties. The established correlations of recyclable copolymers will serve as the design criteria of polymers for target applications. The project will provide graduate and undergraduate students with broad research training on polymers ranging from synthesis to characterization and materials properties..This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.