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A facile approach towards high-performance poly(thioether-thioester)s with full recyclability

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Abstract

Developing new chemically recyclable polymers is important for a circular plastics economy. Herein, we prepared a class of 1,4-dithian-2-one (DTO) with thioether and thioester functionalities. These sulfur-substituted monomers (DTO) showed excellent reactivity for ring-opening polymerization (turnover frequency (TOF) up to 2.3 × 104h−1), which afforded poly(thioether-thioester)s (P(DTO)s) with high air stability, high crystallinity, and commercial high-density polyethylene-like mechanical property (σB = 29.59 ± 1.08 MPa and εB = 749% ± 36%). Intriguingly, chemical recycling of P(DTO) to monomer could be accomplished with excellent efficiency in dilute solution (1 min) at room temperature or even from a commodity plastic waste mixture under catalyst-free thermal bulk condition (180 °C), thus establishing its circular life cycle. P(Me-DTO) could be applied for selective removal of Hg2+ with >99% removal efficiency. More importantly, Me-DTO could be recovered in high yield after utilization for Hg2+ adsorption.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFA1501700), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51903177, U19A2095), the “1000-Youth Talents Program”, and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (YJ201924, YJ202209). We would like to thank Dr. Dongyan Deng from the College of Chemistry, Sichuan University for NMR testing and Dr. Xi Wu from the analytic testing center, Sichuan University for AAS testing.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Engineering Laboratory of Eco-Friendly Polymeric Materials (Sichuan), College of Chemistry, Sichuan University, Chengdu, 610064, China

    Jiang Dai, Wei Xiong, Mu-Rong Du, Gang Wu, Zhongzheng Cai & Jian-Bo Zhu

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  1. Jiang Dai
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  2. Wei Xiong
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  3. Mu-Rong Du
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  4. Gang Wu
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  5. Zhongzheng Cai
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  6. Jian-Bo Zhu
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Correspondence to Zhongzheng Cai or Jian-Bo Zhu.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

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The supporting information is available online at chem.scichina.com and link.springer.com/journal/11426. The supporting materials are published as submitted, without typesetting or editing. The responsibility for scientific accuracy and content remains entirely with the authors.

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Dai, J., Xiong, W., Du, MR. et al. A facile approach towards high-performance poly(thioether-thioester)s with full recyclability. Sci. China Chem. 66, 251–258 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-022-1392-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-022-1392-8

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