South Korea has developed a new PBAT material that can degrade at 25°C
Recently, the team of Professor Li Fenyeol and Professor Li Pingtian of Ajou University in South Korea successfully developed a new PBAT material that can degrade at 25 degrees Celsius.
The scientific research team developed a new type of biodegradable polymer PBAT using metal phosphate as a catalyst, and the degradable plastic made of it can degrade in soil about 9 times faster than the existing degradable plastic.
According to researchers, most of the PBAT polymer structures are formed by covalent bonds at present, and can only be biodegraded under the conditions of artificial composting above 60°C, and the greater the molecular weight of the polymer, the slower the decomposition rate. The new PBAT polymer solves the above problems while retaining durability by adding a certain amount of metal phosphate salt in the production process to make its structure into an ionic bonded form.
After testing, at room temperature (25°C), the degradation rate of the new degradable plastic in soil is about 9 times that of the existing degradable plastic. The research results were published in the online edition of the international scientific journal "Journal of the American Chemical Society".
