Researchers from the University of North Carolina (UNC) have developed a two-step process that breaks down waste rubber into valuable building blocks for epoxy resins. This work, led by Dr Aleksandr Zhukhovitskiy and published in Nature, offers a more environmentally friendly alternative to pyrolysis, a conventional rubber recycling technique that generates harmful by-products such as benzene and dioxins. Reading tip: epoxy coatingsUncover cutting-edge developments in water-borne epoxy resin technology and their use in various coatings application fields with the new EC Tech Report Water-borne Epoxy Coatings. Real-world rubber waste was fully broken down within six hours, showing the potential for industrial scalability. Potential for epoxy coatings and green chemistryEpoxy resins derived from this process may offer performance characteristics similar to those of conventional bisphenol A-based systems.