Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PolyRec (Developing sustainable, high performance polyurethanes with chemical circularity)
Reporting period: 2022-07-01 to 2024-06-30
Summary:
Plastic production is increasing globally reaching 390,7 Mt in 2021. Most of the plastics are used in low value applications were after a short period of time are disposed, contributing to the problem of plastic waste. Chemical recycling to monomer is one of the most promising technologies for the end of life of discarded plastic products. This approach enables to obtain the original monomer that can be infinitely recycled obtaining new polymer with the same physical properties. The European funded PolyRec project will design polyurethanes that can be chemically recycled and that show good physical properties.
Objective:
Since the development of the first fully synthetic plastics at the beginning of the 20th century, these materials have become ubiquitous in our daily life. Today’s plastics are designed for performance, cost, durability, and disposability without taking into consideration their recyclability. Thus, the plastic waste problem is one of the most challenging objectives of the European Union.
Among different polymer families polyurethanes are one of the most versatile. By selecting the appropriate monomers materials with a wide range of physical properties can be obtained. The main advantages of polyurethanes are the durability, toughness and excellent chemical resistance. Thus, polyurethanes are used in a wide range of applications such as building and construction. transport, furniture and bedding, coatings etc.
Conventional polyurethanes are prepared by step-growth polymerization employing diisocyanates and diols or polyols. However, once they reach their end of life they are difficult to recycle. Thus, in this project PolyRec, chemically recyclable polyurethanes will be designed that show a good physical performance and thus, can compete with conventional polyurethanes that are used nowadays in the market.
Plastic production is increasing globally reaching 390,7 Mt in 2021. Most of the plastics are used in low value applications were after a short period of time are disposed, contributing to the problem of plastic waste. Chemical recycling to monomer is one of the most promising technologies for the end of life of discarded plastic products. This approach enables to obtain the original monomer that can be infinitely recycled obtaining new polymer with the same physical properties. The European funded PolyRec project will design polyurethanes that can be chemically recycled and that show good physical properties.
Objective:
Since the development of the first fully synthetic plastics at the beginning of the 20th century, these materials have become ubiquitous in our daily life. Today’s plastics are designed for performance, cost, durability, and disposability without taking into consideration their recyclability. Thus, the plastic waste problem is one of the most challenging objectives of the European Union.
Among different polymer families polyurethanes are one of the most versatile. By selecting the appropriate monomers materials with a wide range of physical properties can be obtained. The main advantages of polyurethanes are the durability, toughness and excellent chemical resistance. Thus, polyurethanes are used in a wide range of applications such as building and construction. transport, furniture and bedding, coatings etc.
Conventional polyurethanes are prepared by step-growth polymerization employing diisocyanates and diols or polyols. However, once they reach their end of life they are difficult to recycle. Thus, in this project PolyRec, chemically recyclable polyurethanes will be designed that show a good physical performance and thus, can compete with conventional polyurethanes that are used nowadays in the market.
The activities performed by the researcher during the short period of time are summarized. The researcher performed a deep bibliographic search related with the synthesis of the monomers, catalysts and the polymerization reactions. She performed all the training for the synthesis of the monomer, catalyst and monomer. She also performed the training required for the use of the instruments such as the glove box, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), Gel permeation chromatography (GPC) and the instruments for the characterization of the physical properties of polymers including the diferencial scanning calorimetry and the thermogravimetric analyzer.
She designed the synthesis procedure for the cyclic carbamates based on aminoalkanols. After some modifications the monomer was succesfully synthetized. The researcher synthetized an organometallic catalyst based on f-block metal complex Y, supported by bulky ligands, in order to obtain a high molecular weight polyurethane. The catalyst ligand was selected considering its electronics, sterics and symmetries, since this makes possible to tune the activity and stereoselectivity of the catalyst.
She designed the synthesis procedure for the cyclic carbamates based on aminoalkanols. After some modifications the monomer was succesfully synthetized. The researcher synthetized an organometallic catalyst based on f-block metal complex Y, supported by bulky ligands, in order to obtain a high molecular weight polyurethane. The catalyst ligand was selected considering its electronics, sterics and symmetries, since this makes possible to tune the activity and stereoselectivity of the catalyst.
Since the project was early terminated after a short period of time, this section is not applicable.