Associate Professor Andrew Chapman and his research group have achieved the upcycling of waste polyoxymethylene (POM) plastics using a novel polymeric heterogeneous catalyst.<\/p>\n
POM plastic was upcycled using m-phenolsulfonic acid-formaldehyde resin, a polymeric heterogeneous catalyst, to afford multiple value-added chemicals, including solvents, insecticides, herbicides, and pillar[5]arenes using biomass-derived alcohols, amines or water as reactants. The acid catalyst exhibited stable and reliable performance at a 260 mol ppm S loading and remained active after five reuse cycles without any loss of catalytic efficiency. The upcycling process was effective even at a 40-gram scale. Under acid-catalyzed conditions, the POM moiety in carbon-fiber-reinforced polymers (CFRPs; 360 mg\u20135 g scale) was selectively depolymerized, yielding carbon fibers free of POM residues, as confirmed by solid-state NMR and SEM. This process also mitigates environmental concerns by converting microplastics into value-added chemicals. Additionally, microwave irradiation proved more effective (up to 99% upcycling) than conventional heating methods (73%). Life cycle assessment analysis results indicate that this upcycling process is sustainable and helps reduce environmental pollution. [Paper Information] Associate Professor Andrew Chapman and his research group have achieved the upcycling of waste polyoxymethylene (POM) plastics using a novel polymeric heterogeneous catalyst. POM plastic … <\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":1702,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19,18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-publications","category-research-activities"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paKOos-rc","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chapman-lab.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/POM.png?fit=701%2C282&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1686"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1692,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1686\/revisions\/1692"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chapman-lab.com\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The full press release (Japanese) is available as a PDF here<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Journal: Green Chemistry
Title: Upcycling waste polyoxymethylene to value-added chemicals using reusable polymeric acid catalysts at ppm levels
Authors: Abhijit Sen, Aya Ohno, Andrew Chapman, Yina Xu, Jingxuan Zhang, Nobutaka Maeda, Jordan T. Carlson, and Yoichi M. A. Yamada
DOI\uff1a10.1039\/D5GC06065F<\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"