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Chemically recyclable, Biodegradable nylon ---- Polyamide 4

Time：2023-05-08 Reading：5399

Polyamide 4 (PA4), is made of butyrolactam (2-Pyrrolidone), under the action of an alkaline catalyst, through anionic ring-opening polymerization, is currently the only kind of nylon that can be obtained by chemical recovery of butyrolactam monomer, and also can be completely biodegradable. Studies have shown that Polyamide 4 can biodegrade in activated silt, river water, seawater and other environments. Due to the high density of amide bonds in the molecular chain of Polyamide 4, its hygroscopic property is close to that of natural fibers such as silk and cotton, which is greatly improved compared with other polyamides and has excellent antistatic properties, has been widely concerned in many fields.

Compared with other biodegradable materials, the sources of Polyamide 4 monomer are very wide, both through the basic chemical synthesis of petroleum-based butyrolactam, but also through biological fermentation to obtain biologically-based butyrolactam, there is no competition for food, and can make full use of social production activities in the surplus of bio-based raw materials.

FIG.1 The life cycle of bio-based Polyamide 4

The polymerization process of Polyamide 4 is heterogeneous polymerization, so the process is extremely uncontrollable. Under the same conditions, the basic physical properties (molecular weight, molecular weight distribution, chroma, etc.) of different batches are very different, the application value is low. In addition, the melting point of Polyamide 4 is close to the thermal decomposition temperature, and thermal decomposition is easy to occur in the melting state. At present, the application of Polyamide 4 is mainly studied by means of solution casting or electrostatic spinning, and there are few reports on melting processing. These characteristics have become the bottleneck problem in the research and application of Polyamide 4.

In view of the problems faced by Polyamide 4 from raw materials to products in the whole industrial chain, Shanghai Institute of Cleantech Innovation currently from the integration of petroleum-based raw materials, Polyamide 4 controlled polymerization methods, Polyamide 4 processing methods and equipment, product applications and other directions to carry out a comprehensive layout, and achieved certain results, welcome to exchange.