Recyclable Plastic

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.