As the production volume of polymers increases, so does the amount of plastic waste. Plastic recycling is one of the concepts to address in this issue. Unfortunately, only a small fraction of plastic waste is recycled. Even with the development of polymers for closed loop recycling that can be in theory reprocessed infinitely the inherent dilemma is that because of collection, cleaning and separation processes the obtained materials simply are not cost competitive with virgin materials. Chemical upcycling, the conversion of polymers to higher valuable products, either polymeric or monomeric, could mitigate this issue. In the following article, we highlight recent examples in this young but fast-growing field.

This article is part of the theme issue 'Bio-derived and bioinspired sustainable advanced materials for emerging technologies (part 2)'.

随着聚合物产量的增加，塑料废物的数量也在增加。塑料回收是这个问题要解决的概念之一。不幸的是，只有一小部分塑料废物被回收利用。即使开发了用于闭环回收的聚合物，理论上可以无限地再加工，但固有的困境是，由于收集、清洁和分离过程，所获得的材料在成本上与原始材料不具有竞争力。化学升级回收，将聚合物转化为更高价值的产品，无论是聚合的还是单体的，都可以缓解这个问题。在下一篇文章中，我们将重点介绍这个年轻但快速发展的领域中最近的例子。

本文是主题问题“用于新兴技术的生物衍生和仿生可持续先进材料（第 2 部分）”的一部分。