Bio-based lactone acrylic plastics with performance and recyclability advantages

There is a drive to use bio-based feedstocks in polymers and engineer new materials for circularity. Here, we aimed to study bio-based, lower-ceiling-temperature alternatives to poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) to achieve enhanced recycling and performance. We show that poly(α-methylene-δ-valerolactone) (PMVL) and poly(α-methylene-δ-decalactone) (PMDL), derived from the corresponding bio-based monomers MVL and MDL, exhibit five advantages compared to PMMA: exceptionally high polymerization rates under green conditions, near-quantitative bulk depolymerization to recover the monomer under mild conditions, enhanced solvent resistance and glass transition temperatures, atom-efficient reversible upcycling to advanced materials, and reduction of the temperature needed for recycling high-ceiling-temperature polyacrylates by forming copolymers doped with MDL. All advantaged properties can be accredited to the pendent lactone attached to the all-carbon backbone. Lastly, techno-economic analysis and life cycle assessment for producing PMVL from bio-based sources show that the production could be economically and environmentally competitive with PMMA under ambitious recycling scenarios that leverage the inherent recyclability of PMVL.