Top-down covalent adaptable and circular epoxy networks
The European Green Deal is driving a shift towards a circular economy by 2050, challenging polymer science to revolutionize thermoset recycling. This project pioneers a completely new approach to make widely available epoxy-amine networks (e.g. windmill blades) recyclable, while they are normally not recyclable. The key is a transformation of a bond present in the network to another bond with so-called reversible behavior upon a trigger (e.g. temperature), what makes recycling possible. This breakthrough in epoxy-amine recycling will be validated on coatings and composites.