2D Sequence-Coded Oligourethane Barcodes for Plastic Materials Labeling

Mixtures of uniform sequence-defined oligourethanes are evaluated as 2D molecular barcodes for labeling three different commodity polymers, namely polystyrene, polyvinylchloride and polyethylene terephthalate. Six different oligourethanes are synthesized by solid-phase iterative synthesis and are coded using a binary monomer alphabet. High-resolution mass spectrometry studies indicate that all oligomers are uniform and sequence-defined. However, instead of using them as individual coded chains, oligomers with different chain-length, mass and sequence are mixed into intentionally polydispersed libraries. In particular, a three-component library and a four-component library are created to encode a 2-bytes model binary sequence. These 2D-coded libraries are incorporated in all commodity plastics via a simple solvent casting procedure. Furthermore, in all cases, the oligomer mixtures can be extracted from the host polymer films and deciphered by mass spectrometry, thus opening interesting avenues for anti-counterfeiting and traceability applications.