Rutgers University researchers have developed a new class of synthetic plastics that can be programmed to degrade under mild conditions – potentially offering a scalable solution to plastic waste. Published in Nature Chemistry, the study describes a structure-based chemical strategy that enables precise control over when and how fast the materials break down.
The key innovation lies in mimicking a trick used by nature: inserting small, adjacent chemical groups within polymer backbones that weaken bonds when triggered. “Biology uses polymers everywhere, such as proteins, DNA, RNA and cellulose, yet nature never faces the kind of long-term accumulation problems we see with synthetic plastics,” said Yuwei Gu, lead author and assistant professor of chemistry at Rutgers, in the team’s press release.
To probe how the materials behaved during degradation, the researchers used techniques such as gel permeation chromatography (GPC) to monitor changes in molecular weight and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy to confirm chemical transformations. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) was also used to assess thermal properties before and after degradation. In one set of experiments, the authors demonstrated that positional isomerism – where neighboring substituents are arranged differently – could tune degradation rates by orders of magnitude.
“Most importantly, we found that the exact spatial arrangement of these neighboring groups dramatically changes how fast the polymer degrades,” Gu explained. “By controlling their orientation and positioning, we can engineer the same plastic to break down over days, months or even years.”
The system’s modularity enables on-demand degradation via light or metal-ion triggers. Ultraviolet light, for instance, cleaved specific linkages to initiate breakdown, opening the door to temporally controlled applications such as drug release or transient packaging. Early breakdown tests indicated the resulting products were not toxic, though the authors note more work is needed to assess long-term environmental safety.
“This research not only opens the door to more environmentally responsible plastics but also broadens the toolbox for designing smart, responsive polymer-based materials across many fields,” Gu added.
The team is now investigating whether this strategy can be adapted for use with existing plastics and industrial-scale manufacturing.
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