New Delhi, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Indian researchers have invented an environmentally friendly plastic degradation method that only requires the plastic to be placed in a solution containing glucose and metal ions at 70 degrees Celsius and stirred continuously for several days to degrade the plastic into molecules.

A team led by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras has found that the new method can be used to degrade plastic materials such as polytetrafluoroethylene. The research has been published in the American Chemical Society journal Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering.

Polytetrafluoroethylene is a high performance material with heat resistance, chemical inertia, insulation stability and low friction. The researchers first stirred a magnetic stirrer coated with teflon for 15 days in a solution of 70 degrees Celsius containing metal ions and 1000 parts per million of glucose (1ppm is one part per million).

The researchers then found tiny shards of bright red glow floating on the surface of the solution. These bright, tiny particles, it turned out, contained molecular fragments of the polytetrafluoroethylene polymer.

The study also found no such degradation of teflon in the absence of agitation, glucose or metal ions; At room temperature, the degradation rate decreased; With the increase of glucose content in solution, the degradation of polytetrafluoroethylene would be enhanced.

The researchers explain that teflon may be degraded into molecules by triboelectricity during continuous agitation. They caution that because many modern cookware is coated with teflon, a similar chemical reaction could also happen to the cookware, resulting in microplastics in food. Similarly, this triboelectric degradation process could also occur in the ocean, where there are a lot of metal ions and the waves provide continuous agitation, so it could be one of the pathways through which Marine microplastics are produced.

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