Sustainability as a Framework for Macromolecular Design

The current plastics production landscape is primarily supported using petroleum feedstocks. However, there is a pressing need to introduce renewable alternatives with potentially lower costs to produce polymers with equivalent or better properties, and that overcome environmental, resource security, and recyclability/life-cycle concerns. I will share innovations designed to establish a life cycle management framework for polymer design, focusing on biomass building blocks derivable from lignin sources and connecting molecular-level features to macroscopic behavior. I will also highlight efforts to extend these concepts to the formation of responsive formulations useful for sensing and separations.