New plastic from Japan dissolves in saltwater

Plastic waste can be found everywhere on the planet. The sea is also heavy burden with it. Over time, bags, bottles or fishing nets decompose in water. What remains microplastic particles remain, for example, marine inhabitants come into the body and harm them. Eventually, they end in the human body through the food chain. Japanese researchers want to remove the situation: they have developed a plastic that dissolves in salt water.

The material weight and power is the same in traditional plastic: it is based on supermolecular polymers that go into weak and reversible bonds. This gives these polymers some practical properties, such as the ability to repair themselves by pressing them back together. They are also simply recycled. With some solvents, bonds can be broken at molecular levels. In this way, supermolecular polymers can be easily reused.

Supramolecular polymer bonds are weak

However, these polymers also have a decisive disadvantage: “The reversible nature of supermolecular polymer bonds is also their weakness because the material is very easily disintegrated”, Takuzo Aida says“It has limited your applications.” The team of scientist, the material of the Ricen Research Institute, has developed new plastic in Wako on Japanese main island Honshu.

The target was a supermolecular material that quickly falls into non -toxic parts under certain conditions, but still it is the mechanical strength of traditional plastic. Ada thought of a response through which molecular relations get stuck, and a salt that is loose again.

The team finally came up with a mixture of monomers based on sodium hexamatfosphate, a common food attached, and guidinum ions used in fertilizers. When these two are mixed together in water, the solution is separated into two layers, a viscose low and an aquatic top. The lower layer consisted of two components which were tied on salt bridges.

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It was removed and dried and made a plastic -like film. Salt bridges make them stable as traditional plastic. It is not flammable, colorless and transparent.

Dissolve in less than nine hours

If the film is immersed in salt water, it returns to its components: electrolytes in salt water again release salt bridges. After about 8.5 hours in salt water, the film is dissolved.

However, it represents a problem. The material can come in contact with salt water spontaneously. Hence, scientists proposed a watercating coating. AIDA says that the final product remains recycled: this is sufficient to scratch the surface. The salt can then enter and break into the material.

In the decomposition process, nitrogen and phosphorus are released. These can be metabolized by germs and can be recorded by plants, which researchers have developed their development Expert magazine in science introduce.

(Wpl)