Background

Polyolefins and polyesters such as polyethylene (PE) and poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) are usually combined to produce food or other packaging. However, their pure components cannot be easily or economically physically separated, so the multicomponent products are generally not recycled. Polyesters and polyolefins exhibit interfacial properties that result in poor general compatibility and poor adhesion.

This technology works effectively as a compatibilizer for PET-PE polymer blends and enables use of ordinarily unusable blends to be formed into practical materials. These multiblock copolymers significantly improve recyclability of packaging materials by making it possible to recycle multicomponent products by direct melt blending.