IBM Creates Plant-Based, Highly Recyclable Plastics

I do not understand this statement. Is this a translation error where the reporter mixed up the use of metal catalysts when processing the polymers? Are they talking about metallic elements in the polymers (i.e. Ca is a metallic element, but not a engineering metal)?

 

I still don't understand the statement above, but found this article which explains how the metallic elements are used as a catalyst in the formation of the polymers.

Ziegler-Natta catalyst - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I don't understand how the "metal in the polymer starts to degrade", perhaps they mean that it undergoes some other reaction that impedes its use as a catalyst?

 

Don't try to understand it. You'll go crazy trying to figure out what some shitty writer meant.

And there were 2 authors on that article. It was all of 3 paragraphs, but it needed 2 authors? And they still screwed it up.

 

I suppose that I should add that I went to grad school for Material Science/Material Engineering. I'm not a plastics expert - unfortunately there weren't any profs in our dept. that specialized in polymers - but I understand the basics.

 

I've done air permitting for plastic and vinyl manufacturing. So far I've been lucky and have not had to get into the real details. I accidentally read a textbook on plastics recycling once.. ouch.