Chemically circular, mechanically tough, and melt-processable polyhydroxyalkanoates

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) have attracted increasing interest as sustainable plastics because of their biorenewability and biodegradability in the ambient environment. However, current semicrystalline PHAs face three long-standing challenges to broad commercial implementation and application: lack...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science) 2023-04, Vol.380 (6640), p.64-69
Main Authors: Zhou, Li, Zhang, Zhen, Shi, Changxia, Scoti, Miriam, Barange, Deepak K, Gowda, Ravikumar R, Chen, Eugene Y-X
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Carbonyl compounds
Carbonyls
Monomers
Polyhydroxyalkanoates
Polyhydroxyalkanoic acid
Polymers
Science & Technology - Other Topics
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Summary:Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) have attracted increasing interest as sustainable plastics because of their biorenewability and biodegradability in the ambient environment. However, current semicrystalline PHAs face three long-standing challenges to broad commercial implementation and application: lack of melt processability, mechanical brittleness, and unrealized recyclability, the last of which is essential for achieving a circular plastics economy. Here we report a synthetic PHA platform that addresses the origin of thermal instability by eliminating α-hydrogens in the PHA repeat units and thus precluding facile cis-elimination during thermal degradation. This simple α,α-disubstitution in PHAs enhances the thermal stability so substantially that the PHAs become melt-processable. Synergistically, this structural modification also endows the PHAs with the mechanical toughness, intrinsic crystallinity, and closed-loop chemical recyclability.
ISSN:0036-8075
1095-9203
DOI:10.1126/science.adg4520