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May 12, 2023 at 1:00 PM
Jeffery Byers
Boston College
Department of Chemistry
Colburn 104
University of Delaware | Newark, DE
New Catalysts for Polymerization and Depolymerization
As we move to a more sustainable plastics economy, catalysis will play a central role for their synthesis and recycling. In this talk, a strategy for chemical recycling that couples redox-switchable polymerization catalysis with reactive distillation depolymerization is presented. Synthesis of a novel thermoplastic elastomer derived from renewable resources was achieved through application of redox-switchable polymerization catalysts. This thermoplastic elastomer can be formulated so that it has properties similar to polyethylene and can be depolymerized to its constituent monomers using a catalytic reactive distillation technique. In addition to the chemical recycling of the thermoplastic elastomer, application of similar catalytic reactive distillation reactions will be discussed that enable the depolymerization of high ceiling temperature polyesters and polycarbonates.