A Second Life for Polyolefins as Biodegradable Surfactants

C-C bond cleavage and C–Al bond formation deconstructs polyolefins into oligomerylaluminum intermediates, subsequently oxidized to fatty alcohols with O2 or fatty acids with CO2.

Scientific Achievement

Restructuring and functionalizing hydrocarbons. Tandem C–C bond cleavage and Al installation at newly created chain ends is catalyzed by surface- supported hydridozirconium sites, generated in situ from air-stable catalyst precursors.

Significance and Impact

This catalytic deconstruction of polyolefins, using Earth-abundant Zr catalyst and Al reactants, into valuable, biodegradable surfactant and detergent precursors, provides an economically and environmentally sustainable end-of-life for single-use plastics.

Research Details

Organoaluminum reagents generate and inoculate air- and moisture-sensitive catalytic ZrH surface sites.
Oligomerylzirconium formed by C–C bond cleavage
reacts with AlR3 to form versatile alkylaluminum species, which transform into products with O2 or CO2.
Products are established as terminal fatty alcohol
chains or acids by MALDI-TOF-MS and 1D and 2D NMR.

Work was performed at Ames Laboratory and ANL

U. Kanbur, G. Zang, A. L. Paterson, P. Chatterjee, R A. Hackler, M. Delferro, I. I. Slowing, F. A. Perras, P. Sun, A. D. Sadow Chem 2021, 7, 1347–1362. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chempr.2021.03.007