Plastic Recycling: Scientists Invent New Approach to Reusable Synthetic Polymer Sans Degrading It, Solution to Pollution

New research recently showed the proof-of-concept of a whole new approach to plastic recycling. Inspired by the manner nature is inherently recycling the organic polymers' components present in the environment.

A ScienceAlert report specified that the Earth and everything living on it is clasping under the weight of all plastic waste humans are producing.

The volume of these non-biodegradable materials thrown after use is only growing, and thus, there is a need for new approaches to deal with them fast.

Such a method guides the fact that proteins within organic polymers are consistently broken down into portions and had them reassembled into different proteins, minus losing the building blocks' quality.

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'Amino Acids'

Essentially, in terms of recycling plastic, a synthetic polymer, sans degrading it, experts said there is a need to think smaller.

Meaning, proteins are among the main organic compounds, acting as building blocks for all things biological. They are long chains of monomers or molecules identified as amino acids, and scientists think that the ways such molecules can be "broken up and reconfigured" proposed a possible tactic for recycling synthetic polymers.

According to Simone Giaveri, a materials scientist from the Switzerland-based École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne or EPFL, a protein is similar to a string of pearls where every pearl is an amino acid.

Every pearl has a different color, added by the scientist, and the color sequence identifies the string construction, not to mention its process.

Nature-Inspired Circular-Economy Recycling

Naturally, protein chains are breaking up into constituent amino acids and putting such amino acids back together to form new proteins; that is, they develop new strings of pearls with a different sequence of colors.

A similar Chop News report said the scientists have called this method "NaCRe" or nature-inspired circular-economy recycling. In laboratory tests, the research team split selected proteins into amino acids, then arranged them into new proteins with different constructions and uses.

In one circumstance, the scientists transformed the proteins from silk into green fluorescent protein, a glowing tracer used in biomedical studies.

Despite the deconstruction and reconstruction, the proteins' quality stays constant. Based on the analysis of the team, the mechanisms that naturally take place in proteins could be applied to plastics, too, although developing and scaling up the essential technology will take some time.

Natural vs. Synthetic Polymers

As indicated in this study, there are major differences between natural and synthetic polymers that could be taken into account, although the scientists said this new approach to recycling is possible and would keep materials currently being used for the longest possible time.

According to EPFL's Francesco Stellacci, a materials scientist, it will need a drastically different mindset. He added, polymers are pearls string, although synthetic polymers are mostly made of pearls all of the same color, and when such color is different, its sequence rarely matters.

Moreover, there is no efficient approach to the assembly of synthetic polymers from different color pearls to control their sequence.

Even biodegradable plastics are creating waste deposit that needs to be stockpiled or buried following completion of the recycling process, with the typical knock-on impacts for the environment when it comes to land usage, as well as pollution. This newly-approach strategy could help deal with that.

In their study, published in Advanced Materials, the study authors approximated a 70-year-lifespan, a person is throwing away roughly two metric tons of plastic, averagely, and considering nearly eight billion people are on Earth right now, which is a "catastrophic amount of waste."

Related information about recycling plastics is shown on VDI Centrum Ressourceneffizienz's YouTube video below: