About Recyclable Plastic:
- The new recyclable plastic is based on Poly(ethyl cyanoacrylate) or PECA, which is prepared from the monomer used to make Super Glue.
- It is formed through a process of polymerization where single, repeating monomer units are strung together in a chemical reaction to make one long chain.
- It has comparable properties to existing plastics and is stable in hot, humid environments.
- The long polymer chains of the PECA plastic can be thermally 'cracked' at temperatures of 210 °C and the resulting monomers distilled into a clean product to use again.
What is Ethyl cyanoacrylate?
- Ethyl cyanoacrylate is a highly reactive monomer that has been used nearly exclusively to make Super Glue and related fast-setting adhesives
- It is produced on the ton scale from methanol, chloroacetic acid, and sodium cyanide, which themselves are sourced from hydrogen, nitrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, chlorine, and sodium hydroxide.
What is polymerization?
- It is a process in which relatively small molecules called monomers combine chemically to produce a very large chainlike or network molecule, called a polymer.
- The monomer molecules may be all alike, or they may represent two, three, or more different compounds.
