| 초록 |
Since the consumption of plastic materials has been notably increasing, the way to reduce plastic waste is also receiving great attention recently. However, most of the current recycling processes are practically infeasible in terms of high temperature, pressure, or toxic catalysts, which leads to an extremely low recycling rate of plastic waste. In this study, one of the most widely used polymer, polystyrene (PS), is shown to be degradable in mild conditions (room temperature and atmospheric pressure) via simple mechanical ball milling process. As a result of 90 min ball milling, a pristine polystyrene bead became not only smaller size powder, but also the weight average molecular weight (Mw) reduced down to ~41%. This study enlightens the ability of mechanical degradation of the main chain of polystyrene and can be utilized as a bridging technique between wild plastic waste feedstock and versatile oligomer state. |
