Hybrid Monomer Design Synergizing Property Trade‐offs in Developing Polymers for Circularity and Performance

Current search for more sustainable plastics seeks to redesign polymers possessing both chemical recyclability monomer a circular economy and desirable performance that can rival or even exceed today's non-recyclable hard-to-recycle petroleum-based incumbents. However, within traditional framework it is challenging optimize, concurrently, contrasting polymerizability/depolymerizability recyclability/performance properties. Here, we highlight the emerging hybrid design strategy develop intrinsically with tunable properties, aiming unify desired, but otherwise conflicting, properties in single monomer. Conceptually, this hybridizes parent pairs of contrasting, mismatching, matching into offspring monomers not only above-described conflicting also radically alter resultant polymer far beyond limits what either homopolymers their copolymers achieve.