South Korea develops new PBAT material, can be decomposing at 25°C

Recently, a team led by Professor Lee Byeong-yeol and Professor Lee Pyeong-cheon at Ajou University in South Korea successfully developed a new PBAT material that can be dissolved at 25 degrees Celsius.

The team used metallic phosphate salts as catalysts to develop a new biodegradable polymer, PBAT, which is made of biodegradable plastic that degrades in soil about nine times faster than existing biodegradable plastic.

Researchers said that most of the current PBAT polymer structure is formed by covalent bonds, can only be biodegradable under the conditions of artificial compost above 60℃, and the larger the molecular weight of the polymer, the slower the decomposition rate. However, by adding a certain amount of phosphate metal salt in the production process, the new PBAT polymer makes its structure become the binding form of ionic bond, which solves the above problems while retaining the durability.

At room temperature (25 ° C), the new biodegradable plastic was tested to degrade in soil about 9 times faster than existing biodegradable plastics. The findings were published in the online edition of the international scientific journal Journal of the American Chemical Society.