Polycarbonate from sugar and carbon dioxide

03 July 2017

Polycarbonate is used to make drinks bottles, lenses for glasses and in scratch-resistant coatings. Current manufacture processes for polycarbonate use BPA (banned from use in baby bottles) and highly toxic phosgene.
Polycarbonates from sugars offer an alternative to traditional polycarbonate from BPA, however the process uses the highly toxic chemical phosgene. Now scientists at the CSCT have developed a much safer alternative which adds carbon dioxide to the sugar at low pressures and at room temperature. This new type of polycarbonate can be biodegraded back into carbon dioxide and sugar using enzymes from soil bacteria (Press Release University of Bath, 21 June 2017).
Click here for the press release.
Click here for more information about the research.

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