The Molecular Foundry has been on the leading edge of developing a solution for plastic pollution thanks to the discovery of polydiketoenamine (PDK) plastic by Foundry staff scientist Brett Helms in 2018. Earlier this year, Helms, along with Berkeley Lab researchers Corinne Scown, Jay Keasling, and Foundry Director Kristin Persson, released a study demonstrating that PDK-based plastics could quickly become commercially competitive with conventional plastics. Now, they are poised to take this work even further.
The U.S. Department of Energy recently announced $25 million in funding for 10 research projects to build the scientific foundations for new technology solutions that reuse discarded plastics to make valuable products and reduce plastics waste. The research efforts will advance understanding of the efficient deconstruction of existing polymers into useful intermediates that can be used to create new valuable products, the direct modification of existing polymers to create polymers with new functionality, and the design of next-generation polymers that can be reused efficiently and sustainably through many energy-efficient product cycles.
A team led by Helms was one of the award recipients for their proposal, “Unlocking Chemical Circularity in Recycling by Controlling Polymer Reactivity Across Scales”. Their aim is to develop an understanding of and control over polymer reactivity in catalytic chemical upcycling and recycling processes in order to expand the recyclability of existing polymers and to create new polymers that are recyclable by design. The team also plans to further study polymers based on PDK to lay the foundation for perfecting polymer circularity.
Joining Helms on this project are a team of Berkeley Lab experts including John Hartwig, Kristin Persson, Jeffrey Reimer, Miquel Salmeron, and Cheng Wang.
Read the announcement from the Department of Energy.