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Every year, approximately two million tons of discarded diapers are burned or wind up in the trash. This is because superabsorbent polymers are made of the highly absorbent material sodium polyacrylate which is very difficult to recycle. Unfortunately, water does not dissolve the crosslinked polymers found in sodium polyacrylate and neither do high temperatures. The materials only deteriorate when exposed to heat rather than melting in order to be repurposed into something new.
“The chains that link the polymers are broken by the light. Then, they are so loose that they swim in water and turn into liquid fibers,” said Pavel Levkin, Professor at the Institute of Biological and Chemical Systems. Better yet the UV light method was reported to be 200 times faster than the acid one.