The world population will rapidly grow from 7 to 9 billion by 2050 and this will parallel a surging annual plastics consumption from today's 350 million tons to well beyond 1 billion tons. The switch from a linear economy with its throwaway culture to a circular economy with efficient reuse of waste plastics is therefore mandatory. Hydrocarbon polymers, accounting for more than half the world's plastics production, enable closed‐loop recycling and effective product‐stewardship systems. High‐molar‐mass hydrocarbons serve as highly versatile, cost‐, resource‐, eco‐ and energy‐efficient, durable lightweight materials produced by solvent‐free, environmentally benign catalytic olefin polymerization. Nanophase separation and alignment of unentangled hydrocarbon polymers afford 100% recyclable self‐reinforcing all‐hydrocarbon composites without requiring the addition of either alien fibers or hazardous nanoparticles. Recycling of durable hydrocarbons is far superior to biodegradation. The facile thermal degradation enables liquefaction and quantitative recovery of low molar mass hydrocarbon oil and gas. Teamed up with biomass‐to‐liquid and carbon dioxide‐to‐fuel conversions, powered by renewable energy, waste hydrocarbons serve as renewable hydrocarbon feedstocks for the synthesis of high molar mass hydrocarbon materials. Herein, an overview is given on how innovations in catalyst and process technology enable tailoring of advanced recyclable hydrocarbon materials meeting the needs of sustainable development and a circular economy.

中文翻译：

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量身定制用于循环经济的烃类聚合物和全烃类复合材料

到2050年，世界人口将从70亿迅速增长到90亿，与此同时，每年的塑料消费量将从今天的3.5亿吨激增至远远超过10亿吨。因此，必须从具有废弃文化的线性经济向具有废旧塑料有效利用的循环经济的转变。占全球塑料产量一半以上的碳氢聚合物可实现闭环回收和有效的产品监管系统。高摩尔质量的烃类是通过无溶剂，对环境无害的催化烯烃聚合生产的，用途广泛，成本，资源，生态和能源效率高，耐用的轻质材料。纳米级分离和未缠结的烃聚合物的排列可提供100％可回收的自增强全烃复合材料，而无需添加外来纤维或有害纳米颗粒。耐用烃的回收远胜于生物降解。容易的热降解能够液化并定量回收低摩尔质量的烃油和天然气。废碳氢化合物与由可再生能源驱动的生物质到液体和二氧化碳到燃料的转化合作，用作合成高摩尔质量碳氢化合物材料的可再生碳氢化合物原料。本文概述了催化剂和工艺技术的创新如何使高级可回收碳氢化合物材料能够满足可持续发展和循环经济的需求。