Effective and sustainable depolymerization of Nylon 66 - a transamidation for the complete recycling of polyamides.

The transamidation of polyamides with short primary amides is reported as an effective recycling technique. This novel depolymerization method is robust and only utilizes cheap and renewable reagents. The process requires a Nb 2 O 5 catalyst, assisted by NH 3 , and operates at relatively mild reaction conditions ( i.e. 200 °C and 3 bar NH 3 ).