Posted on 05/09/2019 6:34:44 PM PDT by CutePuppy
Department of Energy's scientists announced this week that they have designed a plastic that can be recycled over and over again.
Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory wrote in Nature Chemistry that they had designed new plastic, called polydiketoenamine or PDK, that could be disassembled down to the molecular level and reassembled into different shapes, textures or colors multiple times.
Modern-day plastics are reinforced with chemicals to make them more resilient and often end up making the material more difficult to fully recycle. ..... < snip >
< snip > ..... Even the most recyclable plastic is only being recycled at a rate of 20 percent to 30 percent, while the rest ends up in incinerators or landfills, researchers said.
Plastic that can be broken down gets mixed in with other plastics with different textures and compositions, described as a "hodgepodge of chopped-up plastics," ..... < snip > ..... This unknown has prevented what many consider to be the "Holy Grail of recycling," ..... < snip >
< snip > ..... "We're interested in the chemistry that redirects plastic lifecycles from linear to circular," said Helms. ..... < snip >
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
See also Sustainable 'plastics' are on the horizon - FR, by CutePuppy, 2019 January 04
the ‘Holy Grail’ of recycling
Good!!!
Because I’m not ####ed enough when I have to face God after I die but at least I can tell him I used plastic that was able to be recycled over and over and over.
I bet that’s good enough to wipe out adultery, theft and even coveting.
Whatever they make, I will use what I like.
What can possibly go wrong, oh wait, the terminator T-1000 was able to reform at the molecular level.
I don’t give a crap about recycling. I want regular plastic and wood made bags Thank you. Get lost.
What about the “Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch” of recycling?
Tradeoff is what? Toxicity? Price? Requires rare materials controlled wholly by China?
How about phasing out plastic. I have read enough about plastics in the ocean and know that plastics’ component chemicals don’t readily breakdown lasting perhaps forever. Aluminum can breaks down in 450 years, and glass eventually breaks down but plastic lasts forever. Who knows what will happen but most plastic originates in China and India. The turd-world countries are dumping plastic in the ocean by the mega tones.
Just kidding, making shit up!
The problem is the cost and effort of recycling. What’s needed are materials that will safely hold liquids and substances yet biodegrade over time when discarded in the trash.
LOL
This will never happen. There is no way to generate the raw material stream to support a totally new plastic material. Recycling with the plastics we have is not a problem really but the economics don’t work so it doesn’t happen. PET is both endlessly recyclable in it’s polymer form and can be depolymerized to the original acid and alcohol. You melt the polymer and pull a vacuum on it, and it is restored to its original molecular weight and properties. When melted it’s low viscosity allows it to be filtered of any traces of dirt. So PET, the stuff of all those bottles already is endlessly recyclable. But all this costs money and no one wants to pay the price.
Biodegradability is also a worthless effort. Where we put our trash no biological activity can take place. Our landfills are hermetically sealed time capsules for future archeologists.
We don’t need to recycle plastic and we aren’t ever going to run out of dumping space.
Me neither. Maybe metals make sense, but nothing else.
There is a reason beer is not packaged in plastic.)
One big complaint today is about plastic getting into the ocean and (falsely or truly) mucking up the ecology. Unless absolutely draconian efforts are made worldwide, this new plastic will also get into the ocean at the same rate. I wonder if it’s even worse than the old plastics.
If you know that it is well if you please God, even if you are failing to do it in some ways, you’re in better shape than would-be saviors of the globe who think that humanity can mess the earth up worse in a few hundred years than billions of years of cosmic wear and tear can.
Even ocean borne plastic is attacked by solar radiation, mechanical wear, and a microbiological factor that is still ill understood. One species’ yucky is another species’ yummy. Long enough and plastics will go back into their constituent atoms.
That second sentence was great! :)
Per Wikipedia: Clinical Significance - Due to the pervasiveness of plastic products, most of the human population is constantly exposed to the chemical components of plastics. 95% of adults in the United States have had detectable levels of BPA in their urine. Exposure to chemicals such as BPA have been correlated with disruptions in fertility, reproduction, sexual maturation, and other health effects.
So, plastic pollution causes homosexuals, infertility, crybaby adults, and mental midgets such as democrats and other liberals. Good enough reason to better develop recycled plastic, and clean up what is out there in the world.
1, 2, 5!
Price, costs, initially... As usual, costs and price go down quickly with the acceptance and large scale automated production process.
BTW, don't fret too much about "rare metals / materials controlled" by China — they are not really that rare — in faxt they are abundant, and investments seeking to capitalize on that "exclusivity" have gone spectacularly down in flames.
e.g., A war is brewing over lithium mining at the edge of Death Valley - LAT, by Louis Sahagan, 2019 May 07
Why Lithium Stocks Are Plunging Amid Electric Car Boom - Investopedia, by Matthew Johnston, 2019 May 06
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