PolySO2 · Controlled metal-catalysed polymerisation of SO2-derived sources to high performance and recyclable materials

Controlled metal-catalysed polymerisation of SO2-derived sources to high performance and recyclable materials

The plastic industry is facing numerous challenges to adapt to more sustainable practices, including the phase-out of fossil fuel resources, the minimization of all burdens to the environment and the potential toxicity to humans, and the increase in the amount of recycled (recirculated) plastics material after use. However, new technologies and fundamental discoveries are required to overcome these global barriers. PolySO2 was designed to tackle some of these issues in an unconventional way, that is, by targeting the polymerization of underutilized feedstocks, some from waste gases or with potential to be manufactured from renewable resources. In addition, our goal was to obtain polymeric materials that could address the end-of-life of plastic products once they had become waste by providing chemical routes for their degradation. At the core of these goals was the exploitation of metal complexes developed in the group of Professor Charlotte Williams at the University of Oxford, who has pioneered in the conversion of CO2 and epoxides for the production of polycarbonates. Dr. Vidal developed and utilized earth-abundant metal complexes, including zinc(II), magnesium(II), potassium(I), and aluminium(III), to explore new directions that could provide access to unprecedented materials designed for high performance and recyclability. Indeed, the work carried out during this project unveiled novel functional polyesters from the ring-opening copolymerization of functional anhydrides with epoxides, whose chemical and physical attributed could find interesting applications in biomedicine for drug delivery, imaging, or sensing. He has also open the path for their implementation as high performance elastomers with improved end-of-life options thanks to their reprocessability. Finally, Dr. Vidal also demonstrated the potential to depolymerize these materials under hydrolytic conditions, proving that new polyester materials can perform as well as traditional commodity polymers but avoiding the pervasiveness of their wastes.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union