Ethylene-carbon monoxide recycling

Kmiec, C. (1990) Ethylene-carbon monoxide copolymer The established degradable plastic, RECYCLE 90, Forum and Exposition, Davos, Switzerland, 29-31 May. 

In the US, PE manufacturers can supply copolymers made of ethylene and carbon monoxide (E/CO) that begin to disintegrate after several hours of exposure to sunlight. Of course it must be ensured that these products are not recycled or compounded with normal PE. 

Hydroformylation is the reaction of an unsaturated compound (or a saturated compound which may generate an unsaturated compound) with carbon monoxide and hydrogen to yield an aldehyde. The reaction was discovered by O. Roelen in the laboratories of Ruhrchemie AG, Oberhau-sen-Holten in 1938 [21-23] when he tried to recycle olefins to the Fischer-Tropsch synthesis reactor. As reaction products he isolated oxygen-containing compounds which proved to be aldehydes and ketones. Roelen started extensive investigations with ethylene and obtained propionalde-hyde and diethylketone as main products. 

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