RECYCLABLE PLASTIC TILL ETERNAL
- By Bhumika Oraon
- Batch(2k19), Deptt. of Chemical Engg.
- BIT Sindri, Dhanbad
PLASTIC
Plastic is one of the most useful materials in this era. It
has become important that everything in this world depends upon plastic,
whether it is based on small scale or large-scale industries. It is simply a chain of molecules linked
together. These chains are called polymers. Polymers are often made up of carbon, hydrogen and sometimes oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur etc.
It can be moulded, extruded, cast and blown into fibres for textiles.
DISADVANTAGES OF PLASTIC
1)
Natural decomposition of plastic can last from 400-1000
years and most of the
plastics are non-degradable as well.
2)
Plastic materials clog waterways, oceans, seas even though it harms the species
of marine mammals.
3)
Over 90% of all seabirds have plastic in their gut that leads to death.
There
are so many disadvantages of PLASTIC POLLUTION so the SCIENTIST has developed a new invention called PBTL, to know more
about this read below.
According
to 'www.nationalgeographic.com', the production of plastic is
increased exponentially from 2.3 million tons in 1930 to 448 million tons by
2015 and expecting more in 2030. Every year about 8 million tons of plastic
waste is dumped into the oceans from coastal Nations. That means setting five
garbage bags full of trash under every foot of coastline around the world.
NEW PLASTIC REVOLUTION
To
address the global challenge, a team of scientist from the United States, China and Saudi Arabia has design the upcoming generations polymer, must consider
their afterlife issue towards a circular economy. As reported by 'Journal
Science Advances', the new plastic called PBTL(2-thiabicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-3-one), is made from
chemical buildings block called bicyclic
thiolactones.
It maintains its original qualities no matter how many times it will be
recycled. It has excellent strength, stability, toughness says ‘Chen’, meaning it can be used to make car parts, construction
materials, sports equipment, etc.
METHOD
They
set out to design high-performance circular polymers with both intrinsic
chemical recyclability and crystallinity. Guided by some working hypotheses,
they arrived at a bridged bicyclic thiolactone monomer, 2-thiabicycloheptan-3-one (BTL), which can be
prepared from a bio-based olefin carboxylic acid in 80% yield at a 50-g scale.
First, BTL should contain a higher ring strain than the parent,
nonpolymerizable γ-thiobutyrolactone, which should
allow the ROP to proceed at room temperature (RT) with high equilibrium monomer
conversions and yield high molecular weight polymers. Second, the bridged
bicyclic system should provide rigidity to the polymer backbone for enhancing
thermal and mechanical properties. Third, the depolymerizability and
selectivity in the chemical recycling of the resulting polymer poly(2-thiabicyclo[2.2.1]heptan-3-one) (PBTL) should be high
since the ring closure of the five-membered thiolactone is kinetically facile
and thermodynamically favoured.
Furthermore,
the bridged bicyclic monomer exists only in the cis configuration, thus
eliminating possible isomerization. Fourth, the aforementioned PBTL that also
contains the cyclopentylene units, the motif
leading to atactic yet crystalline hPN, could render its tacticity-independent,
thus intrinsic, crystallinity provided the unique ability to crystalize because
of pseudosymmetry and long-range order present in the pan-tactic PBTL
with all degrees of tacticity.
DRAWBACKS TURNS TO INVENTION
However,
one drawback of PBTL is that it cannot be recycled with other kind of plastics.
In order to recycle it, it has to be separated in recycle bins and waste centres.
It is a revolutionary invention but
it still has drawbacks for the use of humans.
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