Trends in Polymer Degradation Across All Scales

The development of sustainable plastic materials will be flanked with conscious resource management, waste recovery frameworks, and social change. Nonetheless, developing strategies toward controlled polymer degradation remains a key challenge—whether as failsafe mechanism for that escape the cycle, or where distinct pathways are required specific applications such in biomedical realm. This perspective highlights recent trends, challenges, future on three levels: 1) On level, by incorporation enzymes into catalyze under benign conditions; 2) domain crystalline segments often inert, even to enzymatically catalyzed degradation. Gaining an understanding mode interaction between chains is controlling all morphologies within materials. Processive depolymerization mechanisms, enzyme binds chain ends depolymerizes along extremely promising efficient degradation; 3) molecular polyesters exhibit enzymatic targets ester bonds through their backbone, poly(alkene)s c carbon backbones. To enable this most abundant class polymers, must developed incorporate backbone.