Industrial-Scale Polypropylene–Polyethylene Physical Alloying Toward Recycling

Polypropylene(PP)and polyethylene(PE)play central roles in our daily life.However,their immiscibility presents a major hurdle in both industry and academia when recycling them into alloys with favorable mechanical properties.Moreover,typical compatibilizer-enabled approaches are limited due to increased environmental concerns.Herein,inspired by a traditional Chinese technique,we report a facile,industry-scale methodology that produces a PP/PE binary blend with a highly ordered honeycomb nanostructure without any additives.Due to its nanostructure,the blend exhibits enhanced tensile properties in com-parison with the parent components or with a sample prepared using an internal mixer.This approach has potential for applications not only in immiscible polymer blending,but also in non-sorting,compatibilizer-free waste plastics recycling.Through this technique,we expect that an environmentally friendly and sustainable plastic wastes recycling avenue can be found,and great economic benefits can be gained.