Liu and his colleagues used ultraviolet light as an energy source and aluminium chloride as a catalyst to break down the chemical structure of the polystyrene. They then used the same catalyst and ...

A father and son on a makeshift boat made from a polystyrene paddle move through a garbage-filled river in Manila (Credit: Getty) Polystyrene has been turned into a valuable chemical found in ...

Syndiotactic polystyrene (sPS) is a material with unique properties, including high melting temperature, good chemical resistance and a nanoporous structure in the crystal unit. These properties ...

Looking at the structure of polystyrene offers insights on why ... The sunlight provides energy that breaks apart chemical bonds. Chris Reddy, a co-author on the paper, adds that“different ...

The carbon black converted the LED light into heat. The heat then broke apart the polystyrene’s molecular structure, creating a mixture of shorter one-, two- and three-styrene units. And these three ...

Pictured here, Guoliang Liu and Zhen Xu upcycled polystyrene waste by exposing it to UV light and adding an organic compound called dichloromethane to produce a valuable chemical called ...

Polystyrene has a glass transition temperature ... Many industrial polymers possess an irregular molecular structure that makes it impossible for them to crystallize. As a polymer material cools ...

That's because the chemistry and structure of plastic ... "upcycling" -- polystyrene. By exposing the material to ultraviolet light and adding a chemical catalyst, this method creates a product ...