Waste PET is Successfully Upcycled Into High-Performance Epoxy Toughener
Researchers developed a one-pot process that converts post-consumer PET waste into hyperbranched oligomers, nearly doubling epoxy impact strength at just 0.3 wt.% addition while preserving transparency and thermal stability.
Source | SAMPE China
Researchers from the Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology & Engineering (Zhejiang, China), Chinese Academy of Sciences (Beijing, China) and the University of Nottingham Ningbo China have developed a one-pot upcycling strategy that converts post-consumer polyethylene terephthalate (PET) waste into hyperbranched oligomers (HBOs) for use as epoxy toughening agents.
The “depolymerization-and-rebranching” process converts waste PET into HBOs with a compact, highly branched architecture and abundant terminal hydroxyl groups. According to researchers, this structure enables the oligomers to disperse uniformly within the epoxy matrix and become covalently integrated into the network during curing.
At an addition level of just 0.3 wt.%, the PET-derived HBO increased the impact strength of the cured epoxy by 98.9%, while maintaining the resin’s processability, mechanical strength, transparency and thermal stability.
Researchers attribute the toughening effect to the formation of nanoscale structural heterogeneities within the epoxy network. These rigid, chemically integrated domains act as stress concentrators, promoting localized plastic deformation, crack deflection and crack bridging, while also inducing microcracking. Together, these mechanisms create a multiscale energy-dissipation network that improves toughness without relying on the cavity-induced shear deformation typically associated with conventional hyperbranched polymers.
The process also demonstrated versatility toward different PET feedstocks and was validated at the kilogram scale. By converting waste PET directly into a functional epoxy additive rather than conventional monomers or specialty chemicals, the approach could provide a higher-value pathway for plastic recycling while supporting the development of tougher high-performance epoxy systems.
The original source of this announcement is available from SAMPE China.
This post is courtesy of the CompositesWorld and SAMPE China Insights media partnership.
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