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A review on photochemical effects of common plastics and their related applications
Summary
This review examines how sunlight triggers photochemical reactions in seven common plastics, altering their physical and chemical properties and accelerating their degradation into smaller particles and dissolved organic compounds. The review also discusses how these photochemical effects can be harnessed for useful applications like light-responsive materials, while noting that in most environmental contexts they worsen plastic pollution by generating microplastics and nanoplastics. Understanding these reactions is key to predicting the environmental fate of plastic debris and designing cleaner plastic management strategies.
Abstract The photochemical effects of plastics refer to a series of photochemical reactions of plastics under certain illumination conditions. In order to help researchers understand the research progress of photochemical effects of plastics, we will introduce photochemical effects of seven common plastics and discuss the influence of functional groups of polymers in plastics on the photochemical effects of plastics in this review. Based on this, we discuss the impact of photochemical effects on the properties of plastics and some factors affecting the surface photochemical effects of plastics. Last but not least, although in most cases the photochemical effects of plastics are extremely detrimental to the control of plastic pollution, some applications based on the photochemical effects of plastics will also be introduced in this review. It is believed that this review can provide some new ideas for the development of new and clean processes and some promising materials such as light‐responsive materials.
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