Scientists have created a technology to convert lignin into plastic using light. Boston College reports.
Lignin is a complex polymeric compound found in trees and some other vascular plant and algae cells. This is what gives the wood its characteristic hardness, ensuring its compressive strength.
Boston College chemists have developed an approach that uses light to turn lignin into “green” plastic. “We developed a catalyst that can selectively break certain chemical bonds in lignin when exposed to light, so lignin is converted into medium-sized soluble molecules called oligomers,” said Jia Niu, one of the study’s authors.
The scientists then turned the oligomers into plastic using crosslinking agents – “molecular glue”. Due to the unique chemical nature of the oligomers formed by the catalyst, plastics made in this way can be chemically split back into oligomers and then converted back into plastic by crosslinkers, and so on.
The authors hope that with the help of their discovery, it will be possible to create a waste-free scheme for the use of plastics, in which the material can be used many times.