Kim Sungjin, Rahman Md Anisur, Arifuzzaman Md, Gilmer Dustin B, Li Bingrui, Wilt Jackson K, Lara-Curzio Edgar, Saito Tomonori
Chemical Sciences Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831, USA.
Bredesen Center for Interdisciplinary Research and Graduate Education, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA.
Sci Adv. 2022 Jun 3;8(22):eabn6006. doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abn6006.
A sustainable closed-loop manufacturing would become reality if commodity plastics can be upcycled into higher-performance materials with facile processability. Such circularity will be realized when the upcycled plastics can be (re)processed into custom-designed structures through energy/resource-efficient additive manufacturing methods, especially by approachable and scalable fused filament fabrication (FFF). Here, we introduce a circular model epitomized by upcycling a prominent thermoplastic, acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) into a recyclable, robust adaptive dynamic covalent network (ABS-vitrimer) (re)printable via FFF. The full FFF processing of ABS-vitrimer overcomes the major challenge of (re)printing cross-linked materials and produces stronger, tougher, solvent-resistant three-dimensional objects directly reprintable and separable from unsorted plastic waste. This study thus offers an imminently adoptable approach for advanced manufacturing toward the circular plastics economy.
如果商品塑料能够通过简便的加工工艺升级为高性能材料，那么可持续的闭环制造将成为现实。当升级后的塑料能够通过节能/资源高效的增材制造方法，特别是通过易于操作且可扩展的熔融长丝制造（FFF）工艺，被（再）加工成定制设计的结构时，这种循环利用就能实现。在此，我们引入了一个循环模型，其典型特征是将一种著名的热塑性塑料——丙烯腈-丁二烯-苯乙烯（ABS）升级为一种可回收的、坚固的自适应动态共价网络（ABS-热致液晶聚合物），该材料可通过FFF工艺进行（再）打印。ABS-热致液晶聚合物的全FFF加工克服了（再）打印交联材料的主要挑战，并直接制造出更强、更坚韧、耐溶剂的三维物体，这些物体可直接从未分类的塑料废料中进行再打印和分离。因此，本研究为迈向循环塑料经济的先进制造提供了一种亟待采用的方法。
