The world fell in love with plastics because they're cheap, convenient, lightweight and long- lasting. For these same reasons, plastics are now trashing the Earth. Colorado State University chemists ...

A team of materials scientists and engineers at ETH Zurich has developed a light-triggered chemical process for breaking down certain polymers into their constituent monomers. The paper is published ...

Several hindrances to the recycling of synthetic polymers, including material separation and post-treatment degradation of the macromolecular polymer chains, negatively affect the cost-efficiency and ...

A new method allows chemists to precisely place single monomers at any position within a polymer chain made of other types of monomers. With this single monomer, chemists can add various types of ...

Hermann Staudinger was a pacifist, but this was one fight he was determined to win. In 1920, the German chemist proposed that polymers—a broad class of compounds that included rubber and ...

Polymers are also called macromolecules, being very large organic molecules composed of an extremely high number of repeating smaller units called monomers. Their applications are widespread, and ...

The world fell in love with plastics because they're cheap, convenient, lightweight and long- lasting. For these same reasons, plastics are now trashing the Earth. Chemists have just announced another ...