Breaking the Recycling Bottleneck of Thermosets via Bio-Tailoring Technology

Abstract

Thermosets present significant recycling challenges due to irreversible chemical crosslinking, resulting in resource waste and environmental pollution. This paper introduces a new strategy for designing thermosets with excellent recycling properties driven by Bio-Tailoring technology, achieving amazing green sustainable development. These thermosets are a class of infusible and insoluble polymers owing to chemical crosslinking. The indole groups in the cross-linked network can be accurately identified and tailored by microorganisms, giving rise to the cross-linked network being tailored into new linear polymers and small molecule segments, named the Bio-Tailoring technology. Linear polymers can be used as a new plastic packaging material that involves high transparency and appreciable mechanical properties. Meanwhile, the cross-linked small molecule moiety is a fluorescent functional unit with a unique push-pull electronic structure that leads to color-changing under external stimulation and can be applied to anti-counterfeiting. Overall, this strategy provides an innovative solution for the sustainable recycling of thermosets and opens a new path for the environmental transformation of the plastics industry.