Electrochemistry may be an underexplored option for recycling plastic waste, researchers show in a review in Chemical Science.

Plastics have been revolutionary for almost all aspects of human life. Imagining a society without polymer-based materials would be quite the challenge. But the inert nature of most of these polymers poses a problem: what do you do with the accumulated waste? Weizhe Zhang, Lars Killian and Arnaud Thevenon from Utrecht University explore the recent advancements in the relatively new field of electrochemical recycling of polymeric materials in their review.

The beauty of these electrochemical methods is that they should be applicable to both current and future polymers. ‘Electrons are traceless reagents’, says Assistant Professor Thevenon. ‘By adjusting their potential energy, you could in theory selectively depolymerise mixed polymer wastes, assuming that the downstream purification of the products is not too energy intensive.’