Japan develops plastic that disappears within hours in the sea and boosts soil health

[u/Vailhem]

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/etimes/trending/japan-developes-plastic-that-disappears-within-hours-in-the-sea-and-boosts-soil-health/articleshow/116128117.cms

[u/Financial-Jicama-262]

is this legit?

[u/Vailhem → u/Financial-Jicama-262]

https://www.riken.jp/en/news_pubs/research_news/pr/2024/20241122_1/index.html

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Mechanically strong yet metabolizable supramolecular plastics by desalting upon phase separation - Nov 2024

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ado1782

Editor's summary

A strong, glassy supramolecular polymer has been shown to prevent the formation of marine microplastics by slowly dissolving in salt water into metabolizable compounds.

Cheng et al. show that salt bridging between sodium hexametaphosphate or sulfated polysaccharides and guanidinium sulfates expels sodium sulfate to create a cross-linked network that is stable until the electrolytes are added back.

The dried material is a moldable and recyclable thermoplastic that can be water stabilized with hydrophobic coatings. —Phil Szuromi

...

Abstract

Plastics that can metabolize in oceans are highly sought for a sustainable future.

In this work, we report the noncovalent synthesis of unprecedented plastics that are mechanically strong yet metabolizable under biologically relevant conditions owing to their dissociative nature with electrolytes.

Salt-bridging sodium hexametaphosphate with di- or tritopic guanidinium sulfate in water forms a cross-linked supramolecular network, which is stable unless electrolytes are resupplied.

This unusual stability is caused by a liquid-liquid phase separation that expels sodium sulfate, generated upon salt bridging, into a water-rich phase.

Drying the remaining condensed liquid phase yields glassy plastics that are thermally reshapable, such as thermoplastics, and usable even in aqueous media with hydrophobic parylene C coating.

This approach can be extended to polysaccharide-based supramolecular plastics that are applicable for three-dimensional printing.