To celebrate the growth and development of the RSC Applied Polymers community and to highlight the remarkable authors who continue to contribute their high quality work to the journal, we would like to share the opinions and insights of these authors through this introductory blog post. Once dubbed #RSCAppliedfirst50, our blog posts aim to give a voice to the authors behind the research and hope that their insights might shed light upon growing challenges and progress in polymer science and its applications.
In this edition, we hear from Seiyoung Yoon as they discuss their recently published article, ‘Tandem CO2 valorisation to polycarbonate vitrimer and ethylene carbonate‘.
An introduction from Seiyoung Yoon
This work presents a CO2-based poly(cyclohexene carbonate) (PCHC) vitrimer designed to create a practical pathway for carbon dioxide valorisation. Carbon dioxide is an abundant greenhouse gas and an underutilized carbon resource. Transforming CO2 from an emission liability into a functional material feedstock represents an important step toward more sustainable material design. Through copolymerization with epoxides, up to 50 mol% CO2 can be incorporated directly into polycarbonate backbones, embedding captured carbon into high-performance networks.
By improving zinc dispersion within the vitrimer using zinc stearate, we achieved faster curing and more efficient mechanical reprocessing while maintaining high thermal stability and mechanical performance over multiple cycles. To demonstrate its relevance in demanding structural applications, the vitrimer was incorporated into carbon fibre-reinforced polymers (CFRPs), which are widely used in aerospace, automotive, wind energy, and sporting goods due to their high strength-to-weight ratio and durability. The composite performs reliably during service, and at end-of-life the resin can be selectively degraded, enabling recovery of clean, damage-free carbon fibres.
Importantly, the material can also be chemically converted through glycolysis in ethylene glycol, producing ethylene carbonate in up to 96–97% yield without additional catalyst. Ethylene carbonate is widely used in lithium-ion battery electrolytes and other industrial processes, making it a valuable and commercially relevant product. Together, these results establish a multi-step CO2 valorisation strategy: from incorporating CO2 into high-performance materials, to enabling composite recycling, to generating useful small molecules.
Meet the author
Seiyoung Yoon, Ph.D. is a polymer scientist currently working in the Innovation Application Team at ANPOLY in South Korea. He received his Ph.D. in Polymer Science from The University of Akron, where his research focused on sustainable polymer networks, vitrimer chemistry, and polymer mechanochemistry. His work spans the design of high-performance and recyclable polymer systems, mechanochemical structure–reactivity relationships, CO2-derived materials, and circular strategies for thermosets and advanced composite applications.
Tandem CO2 valorisation to polycarbonate vitrimer and ethylene carbonate
Seiyoung Yoon, Ling-Jo Wu, Sophia Aracri, Satej S. Joshi, Vishal Kumar, Wenbin Kuang, Mark D. Foster, James M. Eagan and Junpeng Wang
RSC Appl. Polym., 2026, 4, 278-283. DOI: 10.1039/D5LP00314H
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RSC Applied Polymers is a leading international journal for the application of polymers, including experimental and computational studies on both natural and synthetic systems. In this journal, you can discover cross-disciplinary scientific research that leverages polymeric materials in a range of applications. This includes high impact advances made possible with polymers across materials, biology, energy applications and beyond.
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