Modified Sodium Alginate for Degradable Supramolecular Plastic with High Mechanical Strength

Abstract

Plastic products are widely used in daily life. However, due to the non‐degradability, these plastics pose a great threat to the ecological environment and may even endanger human's health or animal's life. In this paper, we report a degradable and reusable supramolecular plastic. This plastic consists of FeCl3 and polyethylene glycol (PEG) modified sodium alginate (SA). Notably, this plastic exhibits excellent mechanical properties, i. e. it can withstand a load as heavy as 15 kg. This superior mechanical property originates from the double crosslinked network formed based on coordination interaction between Fe3+ and −COOH and hydrogen bonding among −OH, −COOH and oxygen atom from PEG. In addition, this plastic can be reused for multiple times with negligible change in the mechanical strength and is fully degradable. We thus believe the supramolecular plastic reported in the current study may show great promises in the practical fields.