A New Life For Nitrile-Butadiene Rubber: Co-Harnessing Metathesis And Condensation For Reincorporation Into Bio-Based Materials

Efficient plastic recycling processes are crucial for the production of value-added products or intermediates. Here, we present a multicatalytic route that allows the degradation of nitrile-butadiene rubber, cross-metathesis of the formed oligomers, and polymerization of the resulting dicarboxylic acids with bio-based diols, providing direct access to unsaturated polyesters. This one-pot approach combines the use of commercially available catalysts that are active and selective under mild conditions to synthesize renewable copolymers without the need to isolate intermediates. A key polymer material, nitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR), is converted under mild conditions via a one-pot catalytic sequence to bio-based polyesters with highly modulable structure and properties. The overall process operates with high atom-economy, formally redistributing the NBR monomers into new difunctional monomers as well as a single valuable small molecule by-product. image