Saturday, December 03, 2022

New method to recycle previously unrecyclable PVC plastic found

Good news! Human ingenuity will take care of plastic pollution! This is not my first blog post about advances in plastic waste management and recycling.

Alert! Plastophobia is a serious disease. If you believe to have symptoms, please seek immediate medical attention!

"Waste PVC can be recycled into an easy-to-use chlorinating reagent, with electrolysis releasing chlorine from the polymer chain in a controlled manner. This process was then used to chlorinate aromatic compounds, transformations that are frequently used in the production of drugs. ..."

"... PVC, or polyvinyl chloride, is one of the most produced plastics in the United States and the third highest by volume in the world. ...
Now, ... researchers ... have discovered a way to chemically recycle PVC into usable material. The most fortuitous part of the study? The researchers found a way to use the phthalates in the plasticizers—one of PVC's most noxious components—as the mediator for the chemical reaction. ..."

From the abstract:
"New approaches are needed to both reduce and reuse plastic waste. In this context, poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC) is an appealing target as it is the least recycled high-production-volume polymer due to its facile release of plasticizers and corrosive HCl gas. Herein, these limitations become advantageous in a paired-electrolysis reaction in which HCl is intentionally generated from PVC to chlorinate arenes in an air- and moisture-tolerant process that is mediated by the plasticizer. The reaction proceeds efficiently with other plastic waste present and a commercial plasticized PVC product (laboratory tubing) can be used directly. A simplified life-cycle assessment reveals that using PVC waste as the chlorine source in the paired-electrolysis reaction has a lower global warming potential than HCl. Overall, this method should inspire other strategies for repurposing waste PVC and related polymers using electrosynthetic reactions, including those that take advantage of existing polymer additives."

New lease of life for waste PVC chlorinating aromatics | Research | Chemistry World Electrochemical process could tackle hard to recycle plastic





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