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Bottle-grade polyethylene furanoate from ring-opening polymerisation of cyclic oligomers.

  • Rosenboom JG Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5/10, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Hohl DK Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5/10, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Fleckenstein P Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5/10, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Storti G Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5/10, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland.
  • Morbidelli M Institute for Chemical and Bioengineering, ETH Zurich, Vladimir-Prelog-Weg 1-5/10, 8093, Zurich, Switzerland. massimo.morbidelli@chem.ethz.ch.
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  • 2018-07-26
Published in:
  • Nature communications. - 2018
General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology
General Physics and Astronomy
General Chemistry
English Polyethylene furanoate (PEF) represents a promising renewable resource-based bioplastic as replacement for fossil-based polyethylene terephthalate (PET) with improved material properties. However, the synthesis of PEF through conventional polycondensation remains challenging, since the time-intensive reaction leads to degradation and undesired discolouration of the product. Here we show the successful rapid synthesis of bottle-grade PEF via ring-opening polymerisation (ROP) from cyclic PEF oligomers within minutes, thereby avoiding degradation and discolouration. The melting point of such mixture of cyclic oligomers lies around 370 °C, well above the degradation temperature of PEF (~329 °C). This challenge can be overcome, exploiting the self-plasticising effect of the forming polymer itself (which melts around 220 °C) by initiation in the presence of a high boiling, yet removable, and inert liquid plasticiser. This concept yields polymer grades required for bottle applications (Mn > 30 kg mol-1, conversion > 95%, colour-free products), and can be extended to other diffusion-limited polymer systems.
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  • English
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gold
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https://sonar.ch/global/documents/277608
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