Hybrid Monomer Design Synergizing Property Trade‐offs in Developing Polymers for Circularity and Performance

Abstract

Current search for more sustainable plastics seeks to redesign polymers possessing both chemical recyclability to monomer for a circular plastics economy and desirable performance that can rival or even exceed today's nonrecyclable or hard-to-recycle petroleum-based incumbents. However, within a traditional monomer framework it is challenging to optimize, concurrently, contrasting polymerizability/depolymerizability and recyclability/performance properties. Here, we highlight the emerging hybrid monomer design strategy to develop intrinsically circular polymers with tunable performance properties, aiming to unify desired, but otherwise conflicting, properties in a single monomer. Conceptually, this design hybridizes parent monomer pairs of contrasting, mismatching, or matching properties into offspring monomers that not only unify the above-described conflicting properties but also radically alter the resultant polymer properties far beyond the limits of what either parent homopolymers or their copolymers can achieve.