Fig. 6: Representative recent strategies for chemical modification of vulcanized polybutadiene-based rubbers.
From: From waste rubber to value polybutadiene modification for circular materials
a Catalytic disassembly via cross-metathesis: Smith et al.75 demonstrated the breakdown of polybutadiene and styrene-butadiene rubber networks through Grubbs-catalyzed cross-metathesis with diesters, yielding soluble low-molecular-weight fragments. b Oxidative-nitriding upcycling: Sun et al.76 converted waste tires into nitrogen/oxygen-enriched hard carbon materials through sequential pre-oxidation and nitriding, producing high-surface-area carbons for high-performance potassium- and sodium-ion battery anodes. c Thermo-oxidative degradation: Yue et al.77 examined the temperature-dependent oxidative degradation of vulcanized butadiene rubber, revealing oxygen-diffusion-limited surface oxidation and concurrent chain scission and recombination processes. d C–H amination and backbone rearrangement: Towell et al.78 developed a sulfur diimide-mediated allylic amination and 2-aza-Cope rearrangement sequence to deconstruct diene polymers and post-consumer rubbers into amine-functionalized oligomers suitable for epoxy resin synthesis.
