GOALI: CAS: Catalyst and Process Design Principles for Polymer Chemistry

With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professor Robert Waymouth of Stanford University, Dr. James Hedrick and Dr. Nathaniel Park of IBM Almaden Laboratories will develop and explore new catalysts and catalytic methods for the transformation of bio-sourced feedstocks into biodegradable, functional and responsive polymers and sustainable plastics. The central focus is on the design and characterization of environmentally-benign metal-free catalysts and polymerization processes for polymer design and synthesis. This work has the potential to advance new strategies in polymer synthesis and create new technologies for next generation of renewable plastics. The unique educational and training environment engendered by this long-standing academic/industrial collaboration will engage students in a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative effort between an academic and industrial laboratory. Under this GOALI (Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry) award, the collaborative academic/industrial team is focused on the simultaneous development of new science and of implementable technology. Specifically, the team aims to: (i) investigate and design new catalyst concepts and catalyst families to enable the scalable and reproducible generation of monomers and well-defined polymers and copolymers, (ii) develop new automated flow reactors that integrate catalysts specifically designed to function optimally in these reactors, (iii) investigate integrated catalytic strategies and flow processes for both monomer and polymer synthesis and (iv) investigate the functional properties of macromolecular materials generated with these synthetic strategies. The scientific approach of this team project is to apply state-of-the-art mechanistic and theoretical methods to illuminate the details of organocatalytic polymerization reactions, both to test evolving hypotheses on organocatalytic strategies and to provide clear scientific rationale for both the advantages and limitations of these synthetic strategies. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.