U.S. Develops Successfully Recyclable Plastic

Most of the plastic products used today can only be sufficiently softened when heated to 200°C or higher. This method not only consumes a large amount of energy and brings about certain environmental pollution, but also destroys the polymer molecular chain of the plastic, reduces the strength of the plastic, and greatly reduces the performance when recycled and reused.

Recently, MIT developed a new type of plastic that can be recycled and reshaped at room temperature and standard manufacturing pressure, providing a new way to solve the "white pollution" problem.

MIT’s Anne Mess and others used a mixture of stiffer polystyrene and another softer plastic to develop a new type of material that was treated to soften into a form that could be molded. Plastic transparent plastics of various shapes are molded, and their tenacity and strength remain unchanged after repeated use for 10 times.