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61,005 resultsShowing papers similar to Circularity in polymers: addressing performance and sustainability challenges using dynamic covalent chemistries
ClearCurrent Advances and Challenges in Chemical Recycling of Polymeric Materials
This review examines current advances and remaining challenges in chemical recycling of polymeric materials as an alternative to mechanical recycling, which degrades material properties with repeated cycling. The authors discuss the high efficiency and simpler preprocessing requirements of chemical recycling methods against a backdrop of approximately 150 million metric tonnes of annual global plastic waste generation.
Chemistry and materials science for a sustainable circular polymeric economy
Researchers reflected on the fundamental chemistry challenges limiting a circular plastic economy — including the sheer variety of polymer types, contamination during use, and imperfect recycling — and argued that solving plastic pollution requires both chemical innovation and systemic non-chemical interventions.
Expanding plastics recycling technologies: chemical aspects, technology status and challenges
This review examined the full life cycle of plastics and evaluated options for managing plastic waste, with a focus on chemical recycling technologies. The study suggests that overcoming barriers to industrial chemical recycling could open new opportunities for reducing plastic pollution.
Cross-Linked Polyolefins: Opportunities for Fostering Circularity Throughout the Materials Lifecycle
This review examines cross-linked polyolefins, a significant class of plastics that are typically incinerated or landfilled because they cannot be melted for reprocessing. Researchers assessed both traditional mechanical recycling and advanced recycling methods for improving circularity of these materials. The study highlights opportunities to reduce plastic waste through biobased feedstocks, extended product lifespans, and recyclable-by-design strategies for future cross-linked polyolefin products.
Bio-based plastics in a circular economy: A review of recovery pathways and implications for product design
Researchers reviewed how bio-based plastics — made from renewable plant sources — can be recovered and recycled at end-of-life, finding that the feasibility of eight different recovery methods depends heavily not just on plastic chemistry but on how products are designed, and offering guidance for designers to improve recyclability.
Polymers in Circular Economy: A Comprehensive Approach to Sustainability. An overview.
This review examines the role of polymers within the circular economy framework, analyzing strategies for reducing plastic consumption, improving recyclability, and transitioning toward more sustainable production and waste management models. The authors discuss the importance of government regulation and industry standards in driving circular economy adoption, while acknowledging barriers including economic inertia, upfront investment costs, and resistance to systemic change.
Strategic selection tool for thermoplastic materials in a renewable circular economy: Identifying future circular polymers
Researchers developed a strategic material selection tool to guide the transition toward a renewable circular economy for thermoplastics, helping identify which polymers can meet performance requirements while being decoupled from fossil feedstocks and compatible with biodegradation or closed-loop recycling.
Process Optimization of Solvents Assisted Polyethylene Waste Recycling
Researchers optimized solvent-based chemical recycling of polyethylene plastic waste to recover high-quality recycled material. The study demonstrates that chemical recycling can be tuned to maximize yield and quality, offering a scalable alternative to mechanical recycling that degrades plastic properties over time.
Melt-Blown Cross-Linked Fibers from Thermally Reversible Diels–Alder Polymer Networks
New crosslinked polymer fibers were made using a reversible chemical reaction, producing materials that can be remelted and reprocessed. Designing plastics that can be thermally recycled could help reduce the amount of plastic waste that degrades into microplastics in the environment.
Valorisation of plastic waste via metal-catalysed depolymerisation
This review covers metal-catalysed depolymerisation approaches for recycling and upcycling waste plastics back into monomers or value-added chemicals, highlighting recent advances in catalyst design that improve selectivity and yield for common polymer types.
On the Road to Circular Polymer Brushes: Challenges and Prospects
This review discusses the challenges and prospects for creating recyclable polymer brush coatings — surface-functionalized polymer layers widely used in medical devices and anti-fouling applications. The authors examine reversible attachment chemistries and closed-loop recycling strategies that could enable circular use of these high-value surface treatments.
Chemical recycling of polyolefins: a closed-loop cycle of waste to olefins
This review examines chemical recycling methods that can convert polyolefin plastic waste back into olefins, creating a true closed-loop cycle. Researchers describe how pyrolysis, including thermal, catalytic, and solvent-based approaches, breaks down plastic waste into reusable chemical building blocks. The study suggests that chemical recycling holds significant potential for addressing plastic pollution by turning waste into valuable raw materials rather than sending it to landfills.
Developing Bioderived CO2-Responsive Polymers as Alternatives to Petroleum-derived Polymers
Researchers examined the development of bioderived, CO2-responsive polymers as sustainable alternatives to petroleum-derived plastics, using life cycle assessment principles and green chemistry frameworks to guide material design. The work addresses the environmental harms of petroleum-based plastic production and low recycling rates, proposing bio-based responsive polymers as a route toward materials with reduced environmental impact across their full lifecycle.
Strategies towards Fully Recyclable Commercial Epoxy Resins: Diels–Alder Structures in Sustainable Composites
Researchers designed epoxy resins incorporating Diels-Alder reversible covalent bonds to enable chemical recycling at end of life, characterizing the thermomechanical properties of the resulting thermosets. The resins showed mechanical performance comparable to commercial epoxies while allowing near-complete depolymerization under mild heating, offering a pathway toward fully recyclable structural composites.
The future of plastic
Researchers examine whether biodegradable polymers can solve plastic's environmental crisis, noting that while plastic is enormously useful, society's heavy reliance on it has created a global pollution problem that biodegradable alternatives alone are unlikely to fully resolve.
Polymer‐Based Recycling Strategies for Plastic Waste: A Comprehensive Review
This comprehensive review evaluates mechanical and chemical recycling strategies for plastic waste, noting that mechanical recycling is widely used but limited by polymer degradation, while chemical recycling offers higher quality recovery but at greater energy and financial cost. The study highlights emerging technologies including AI-assisted sorting, nanotechnology, and biodegradable polymer development as promising approaches for building a more circular plastics economy.
Are Reliable and Emerging Technologies Available for Plastic Recycling in a Circular Economy?
This review examines the current landscape of plastic recycling technologies -- including mechanical, thermal, chemical, and biological depolymerization methods such as pyrolysis -- evaluating their readiness for circular economy integration. It concludes that while recycling rates remain below 10% globally, emerging technologies offer pathways toward closed-loop plastic supply chains, though full-scale implementation requires further development and performance assessment.
Polydiketoenamines for a Circular Plastics Economy
This review introduced polydiketoenamines (PDKs) as a novel class of chemically recyclable plastics designed to support a circular economy, highlighting that conventional plastics degrade into environmentally persistent microplastics that bioaccumulate and leach toxic chemicals. PDKs can be fully depolymerized and repolymerized under mild acidic conditions, avoiding the microplastic pollution associated with conventional polymer disposal.
First Steps Toward Sustainable Circular Uses of Chemicals: Advancing the Assessment and Management Paradigm
This article advances a framework for sustainable circular use of chemicals, proposing updated assessment and management approaches to reduce chemical hazards while enabling circularity in industrial and consumer product systems.
Adaptable Polyurethane Networks Containing Tertiary Amines as Intrinsic Bond Exchange Catalyst
Not relevant to microplastics — this is a polymer chemistry study developing recyclable polyurethane vitrimer materials that incorporate an intrinsic catalyst for bond exchange, improving their thermomechanical properties and recyclability.
Economia Circular E Desenvolvimento Sustentável: Compostabilidade, Biodegradação E Inovação Em Biopolímeros E Compósitos Renováveis Para Aplicações Estruturais, Agrícolas E Embalagens
This review paper summarizes research on new plant-based plastics that can break down naturally in the environment, unlike regular plastics made from oil. These eco-friendly materials could replace traditional plastic in food packaging and farming, potentially reducing the tiny plastic particles that end up in our food and water. However, the technology still needs improvements and better waste management systems before these biodegradable plastics can widely replace regular plastics.
Legacy additives in a circular economy of plastics: Current dilemma, policy analysis, and emerging countermeasures
This review analyzed the challenges posed by legacy chemical additives such as flame retardants and plasticizers in achieving a circular economy for plastics. Researchers found that recycling plastics containing these now-restricted or banned substances creates a dilemma, as hazardous additives can be reintroduced into new products, and the study discussed emerging countermeasures to address this problem.
Addressing the sustainability challenges for polymers in liquid formulations
This perspectives piece identifies the sustainability challenges facing polymer use in liquid formulations, particularly around persistence and environmental fate, and reviews the role of chemistry in developing more sustainable alternatives. A call to action is made for the field to prioritize solution-oriented research.
Potential contribution of nanotechnolgy to the circular economy of plastic materials
This paper reviews how nanotechnology could support a circular plastic economy by improving recycled plastic properties and enabling catalytic breakdown of plastics into reusable monomers. Nano-additives and nano-catalysts are identified as promising tools for shifting plastic management from linear waste to resource recovery.