Prof. Natalie Stingelin, Georgia Institute of Technology
Cool Plastics for a Greener World
With seabirds trapped in multipack drink rings, and mid-ocean islands of indestructible rubbish, the idea that plastics could play a big part in a sustainable future world might seem far-fetched. However, new smart plastics may yet rescue the reputation of this all-consuming 20th century material. For instance, polymers produced from renewable sources have become attractive to substitute or fully replace petroleum-based plastics in packaging material. Here, we present promising pathways to maintain the barrier properties of cellulose derivates even in high humidity. Specifically, we demonstrate that the water vapor transmission rate (WVTR) of our systems can be manipulated in a controlled fashion over three orders of magnitude, with the lowest WVTR value being one order of magnitude lower than that measured for poly(ethylene terephthalate) even at a relatively humidity of up to 65%. Interestingly, similar strategies can be applied to produce, with biodegradable commodity polymers such as poly(vinyl alcohol), plastic heat mirrors and, generally, systems that can control the flow of light/heat to assist with energy management in buildings, greenhouses, and cars. Research into such ‘cool plastics’, thus, could reduce the need for air conditioning and, in turn, improve their energy efficiency; building blocks for novel optical structures that can lead to quantum devices may be produced as well. Combined, we will present the opportunities that even simple polymers offer to design systems of desired functions targeted for a greener world.
Bio:
Natalie Stingelin is a Full Professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Chair of the School of Materials Science & Engineering. She held prior positions at Imperial College London, UK, at Queen Mary University of London, UK; the Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, The Netherlands; the Cavendish Laboratories, University of Cambridge, UK; and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich, Switzerland. She is an Associate Editor of the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS), and served as the Director of Georgia Tech’s Center of Organic Electronics and Photonics till 2023. She was elected a 2023 Member of the European Academy of Sciences (EurASc); a 2021 Fellow of the U.S. National Academy of Inventors (NAI); a 2019 Fellow of the Materials Research Society (MRS); and a 2012 Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). Her research interests encompass the broad area of functional polymer materials, polymer physics, organic electronics & photonics, and bioelectronics.