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Degradation of polypropylene carbonate through plasmonic heating
Kaitlin M Haas1, Benjamin J Lear
1Department of Chemistry, The Pennsylvania State University, 104 Chemistry Building, University Park, USA.
Abstract:
We report the thermal degradation of a solid film of polypropylene carbonate, driven by the photothermal effect of gold nanoparticles. We provide characterization of the products of this chemical reaction and use the known activation barrier for this chemical reaction to discuss the temperatures obtained in the film. In addition, we report the efficiency of the reaction as a function of nanoparticle concentration and find nanoparticles to be significantly more effective than an organic dye at driving this reaction.

