Upcycling of polyvinyl chloride into polyalphaolefin lubricants

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Munyaneza Nuwayo, Eric; Thompson, Connor; Civiello, Abby; DiMarco, Adrian; Zhang, Jingtao; Lee, Seungjoo; Sung, Gugyeong; Das, Tridip; Zhang, Yue; Vu, Clark; Koshak, Shelby; Matson, John B.; Erdemir, Ali; Goddard, William A.; Chen, Xi; Liu, Guoliang
• 署名单位: Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; California Institute of Technology; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
• 刊物名称: NATURE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0028-0836; 1476-4687
• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10867-z
• 发表日期: 2026-08-13
• 页码: 42557332
• 关键词: POLY(VINYL CHLORIDE); THERMAL-DEGRADATION; SYNTHETIC LUBRICANTS; PVC; polyethylene

摘要

Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) is a thermoplastic used ubiquitously in households and industry owing to its light weight, mechanical strength, durability, low cost and ultraviolet and fire resistance1,2. With a production volume of about 60 million tonnes annually2, post-consumer and post-industrial PVC waste pose marked environmental challenges, such as leaching chlorohydrocarbons and additives, which contaminate groundwater and soil1, 2, 3-4. To address the formidable challenge of recycling PVC and achieving carbon circularity, valorization into high-value products is essential to mitigate the associated costs and offer high financial incentives for reusing plastic waste5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13-14. Here we report a method for upcycling PVC into high-value lubricants with controllable viscosities. Using AlCl3 at a mild temperature of 70 degrees C, PVC undergoes dechlorination, alkylation and chain scission, producing vinyl-derived polyalphaolefins (vPAO). PVC serves as an effective template for the alkylation of alpha-olefins of various chain lengths, producing vPAO with limited short branches in the backbone without the need for metallocene catalysts essential to current PAO technology. The PVC-derived lubricants exhibit tunable molar masses, kinematic viscosities at 100 degrees C (KV100 approximate to 14.9-26.3 centistokes), a low coefficient of friction (COF approximate to 0.08-0.15) and a high viscosity index (VI up to 130). This work highlights an economical approach to using PVC as a low-cost feedstock to synthesize high-value lubricants with superior tribological properties, meeting the demand for sustainability in both the plastic and lubricant industries.