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Washington, Oct 26: U.S. researchers claim that two new laboratory breakthroughs have made it possible to dramatically improve how plastics are made, by assembling molecular chains faster and with less waste.
Using environmentally friendly substances as vitamin C or pure water, the two approaches present attractive alternatives to the common plastic manufacturing technique called free radical polymerization (FRP).
"The methods both present novel and complementary ways to dramatically improve efficiency, product control, and cost for the polymer industry. Each of these approaches could have a very significant impact on polymer manufacturing," said Andy Lovinger, the National Science Foundation program director who oversees funds for the two projects.
Plastics are polymers, long, potentially complex, molecule chains crafted from an array of smaller chemical units. Using FRP, chemical engineers can create the right plastic for a range of applications, such as a specific trim for a car door or soft foam for a pillow.
The new processes are being developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pennsylvania.
The Penn University researchers' method uses elemental copper as a catalyst to limit byproducts and allows the use of water as a solvent.
The Carnegie Mellon researchers used a different approach.
For some plastics, the building-block molecules do not easily link together. To overcome this problem, the researchers devised a process called atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), which provides creative ways to coax the chemical subunits into chains. However, this method comes with certain costs, such as the need for a copper catalyst that can become unwanted waste.
However, the researchers found that by adding vitamin C, glucose, or other electron-absorbing agents to the ATRP process can reduce the amount of copper catalyst by a factor of 1000.
Because the catalyst often needs to be removed from the end products, less copper means far less waste and drastically reduced removal costs.
The research is described in a paper in the Oct. 17, 2006, issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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