Sustainable and recyclable super engineering thermoplastic from biorenewable monomer

Seul-A Park, Hyeonyeol Jeon, Hyungjun Kim, Sung-Ho Shin, Seunghwan Choy, Dong Soo Hwang, Jun Mo Koo, Jonggeon Jegal, Sung Yeon Hwang (), Jeyoung Park () and Dongyeop X. Oh ()
Additional contact information
Seul-A Park: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Hyeonyeol Jeon: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Hyungjun Kim: Incheon National University
Sung-Ho Shin: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Seunghwan Choy: Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)
Dong Soo Hwang: Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH)
Jun Mo Koo: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Jonggeon Jegal: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Sung Yeon Hwang: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Jeyoung Park: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)
Dongyeop X. Oh: Research Center for Bio-based Chemistry, Korea Research Institute of Chemical Technology (KRICT)

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract Environmental and health concerns force the search for sustainable super engineering plastics (SEPs) that utilise bio-derived cyclic monomers, e.g. isosorbide instead of restricted petrochemicals. However, previously reported bio-derived thermosets or thermoplastics rarely offer thermal/mechanical properties, scalability, or recycling that match those of petrochemical SEPs. Here we use a phase transfer catalyst to synthesise an isosorbide-based polymer with a high molecular weight >100 kg mol−1, which is reproducible at a 1-kg-scale production. It is transparent and solvent/melt-processible for recycling, with a glass transition temperature of 212 °C, a tensile strength of 78 MPa, and a thermal expansion coefficient of 23.8 ppm K−1. Such a performance combination has not been reported before for bio-based thermoplastics, petrochemical SEPs, or thermosets. Interestingly, quantum chemical simulations show the alicyclic bicyclic ring structure of isosorbide imposes stronger geometric restraint to polymer chain than the aromatic group of bisphenol-A.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-10582-6 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-10582-6

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-10582-6

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().