Grant: Discovery Grants Program - Individual

The compounds made by students and researchers in my group will be used as initiators or catalysts for making new polymeric materials (plastics) from renewable starting materials (feedstocks). Most modern plastics are made from petrochemical sources, which are quickly becoming depleted or prohibitively expensive. Our research seeks ways to improve our use of these resources in a more energy efficient and higher yielding manner. We are also using alternative starting materials that can be obtained cheaply from renewable materials, such as plants, or from waste products, such as carbon dioxide (CO2). In short, can we make new plastics from chemicals obtained from plants, as well as use at least some of the CO2 that is accumulating in our atmosphere? The problem with many of these starting materials, especially CO2, is that they are very unreactive and require forcing conditions (such as long reaction times, very high temperatures or pressures) in order for us to do chemistry with them. The use of metal-containing catalysts is one way to make the processes using these feedstocks more rapid and energy efficient. Since these catalysts must be very reactive, they must be handled under special conditions free from oxygen and water, which could destroy the catalyst. This proposal will develop a sound program of fundamental research with important potential applications. We will obtain new insights and develop expertise into the important area of biodegradable polymer synthesis using renewable sources. Combining petrochemical and bio-sourced feedstocks will yield new, high performance polymeric materials of interest to companies in the polymer industry. This work will undoubtedly lead to collaborations with industry, as well as with academics in the related fields of materials physics and engineering, for commercialization of new technologies. The biodegradable/bioassimilable nature of these materials will lead to collaborations with the biotechnology sector to assess their use in medicine or their degradation pathways.