31-Oct-20
A collaboration between Sibley School Professor, Meredith Silberstein, Cornell University Chemistry & Chemical Biology Professor Coates, and the College of Wooster produced a new plastic that can degrade on a realistic time scale if lost in an aquatic environment.
To address the plastic environmental crisis, Cornell scientists have developed a new polymer with ample strength in a marine setting that is poised to degrade by ultraviolet radiation, according to research published March 30 in the美国化学学会杂志.
研究人员创建了一种新的塑料，该塑料具有商业渔具所需的机械性能。如果最终在水生环境中丢失，则该材料可能会在现实的时间范围内降低。该材料可以减少环境中的持续塑料积累。
Commercial fishing contributes to about half of all floating plastic waste that ends up in the oceans.
渔网和绳索主要由三种聚合物制成：同型聚丙烯，高密度聚乙烯和尼龙6,6，它们都不容易降解。
尽管近年来对可降解塑料的研究引起了很多关注，但获得与商业塑料相当的机械强度的材料仍然是一个困难的挑战。
Professor Coates and his research team have spent the past 15 years developing this plastic called isotactic polypropylene oxide, or iPPO.
While its original discovery was in 1949, the mechanical strength and photodegradation of this material was unknown before this recent work.
The high isotacticity (enchainment regularity) and polymer chain length of their material makes it distinct from its historic predecessor and provides its mechanical strength.
While iPPO is stable in ordinary use, it eventually breaks down when exposed to UV light.
The change in the plastic’s composition is evident in the laboratory, but visually, it may not appear to have changed much during the process.
The rate of degradation is light intensity-dependent, but under their laboratory conditions, he said, the polymer chain lengths degraded to a quarter of their original length after 30 days of exposure.
最终，科学家希望在环境中不留下聚合物的痕迹。
Principal researchers on the project are Doctoral Candidate Bryce Lipinski and Professor Coates, Lilliana S. Morris, Ph.D. ’19, assistant professor of chemistry at the College of Wooster, Ohio; and Meredith N. Silberstein, associate professor in Cornell Engineering.
这项研究得到了国家科学基金会可持续聚合物中心的支持，NSF支持NMR Facility在康奈尔和Cornell Center for Materials Research.
来源：Blaine Friedlander
Reference:美国化学学会杂志
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