Scientists find the world's first reusable plastic

Good news for environmental activists and anyone of us who is interested in global plastic waste: a team of scientists from the University of Colorado, USA has just developed a successful The plastic can be fully recycled, independent of petroleum materials and even easily decomposed by living organisms. This will change everything in the way we consume and reuse plastic today.

All plastics today can only be partially recycled.

The new plastic is developed based on a chemical called Gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL) . Previously, GBL has been mentioned by many scientists in their literature. It represents a chemical structure that is too stable and difficult to be used to produce plastics.

Even so, the University of Colorado research team was determined to try this "impossible" thing. "We suspect that previous reports on GBL are inaccurate," said Eugene Chen, a chemist in the group.

At the present time, the statistics show that each person consumes up to 90kg of synthetic polymer each year. Most of them are plastic that cannot be degraded or recycled. More than 299 million tons of plastic were produced in 2013 and the increase in this figure was about 4%.

Every month, our oceans suffer more than 1 million tons of plastic. This is the cause of 5250 billion floating plastic particles in the sea, causing a loss of $ 13 billion per year for ecosystems, fisheries and tourism.

A plastic sea in Belize, Central America.

In the US, only about 2.8 million tons of plastic, equivalent to 9%, went to recycling plants in 2012. The remaining 32 million tons were discarded. While many plastic bottles have a recycling symbol, it can only be reused to some degree.Recycled plastic can be mixed with new plastic to extend life, it cannot completely return to a perfect recycling process.

These problems are similar to the bio-plastics available on the market today. The process of extending the life cycle of bioplastics can even produce some unwanted by-products."The current trend is toward biodegradable plastic production . However, we still do not have a perfect solution , " Chen said.

That's why the GBL polymer of scientists from the University of Colorado becomes a bright candidate for 100% recycled plastic. By simply heating this polymer in the range of 220-300 ^o C, it will automatically decay into GBL monoliths. When we obtain a single molecule, they can be combined back into polymer, if the ambient temperature drops to -40 ^° C.

A single molecule Gamma-Butyrolactone (GBL).

For 10 years, many scientists have found similar ways to do this but they all failed. Eugene Chen and his colleagues, by perseverance, finally solved the problem of combining GBL into polymer. They used different catalysts to change the molecular shape of the polymer obtained.

The GBL polymer was confirmed by Chen and colleagues to possess the chemical properties equivalent to today's P4HB bioplastic . Moreover, the superiority in 100% recycling capacity makes it the perfect candidate for replacing P4HB in the future.

The results of Chen's research and colleagues are published in the journal Nature Chemistry. He also applied for a patent for his GBL polymer. In the future, Chen hopes to soon find a way to optimize production costs, put GBL polymer in place of conventional plastics right now.