Researchers at Colorado State University and Northwestern University have developed a polymer platform that uses carbon dioxide as a building block for high-performance polyesters that can later be chemically broken down and rebuilt. The study, published in Nature under the title "Alternating CO2 and bicycloalkane copolymerization to circular polyesters", uses bicyclic butane (BCB) and bicyclic pentane (BCP) in a direct alternating copolymerization process. The method produced high-molar-mass polymers containing up to 50 mol% carbon dioxide while allowing their molecular building blocks to be recovered for further polymer production.
The work addresses a long-standing challenge in polymer chemistry: carbon dioxide is widely available but relatively chemically inert, making it difficult to incorporate efficiently into useful plastic materials. Instead of relying on highly reactive comonomers, the researchers used bicycloalkanes and a simple organic catalyst to create polyester chains with controlled structures and adjustable thermal and mechanical characteristics.
