Degradable plastics are a class of plastics that can degrade in the natural environment with small molecules that are harmless to the environment. The early development of degradable materials, such as starch, contains parts of natural degradable materials that can be rapidly degraded in the soil, causing the overall plastic to break down into small pieces of plastic. However, this degradation is only an illusion, and the small pieces of plastic remaining in the soil will not continue to degrade. Degradable plastics produced in this way cannot achieve full degradation of plastics without fundamentally solving the problem.
Paper, animals, plants, and fruit peels are easily degradable household wastes, and the essence of their degradation is the breaking of carbon-oxygen bonds or carbon-nitrogen bonds in the structure. Common plastics are composed of polymers composed of olefin monomers connected by covalent bonds. The main components are polyethylene, polypropylene, and polyvinyl chloride. Molecular composition, the main components are polyethylene, polypropylene, polyvinyl chloride, etc. Its stability is very good, and it is not easy to break and degrade under the stimulation of natural conditions. It can be seen that the degradation performance is determined by the composition structure, so the degradable purpose can be achieved by introducing heteroatoms such as oxygen and nitrogen into the polymer main chain structure of the plastic. At present, the degradable plastics synthesized by chemical synthesis are mainly biodegradable aliphatic polyesters, such as polylactic acid (PLA), polybutylene succinate (PBS), and polycaprolactone.
