The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) has announced an initiative to tackle the global plastic waste crisis, awarding five highly competitive grants to research teams across the country. These projects are part of the “Molecular Foundations for Sustainability: Sustainable Polymers Enabled by Emerging Data Analytics (MFS-SPEED)” program, a $9.8 million effort co-funded by the NSF and industry partners.
The program’s goal is to accelerate the discovery and manufacturing of sustainable polymers—the building blocks of plastics—by leveraging the power of data science and artificial intelligence (AI). It also seeks to train a new generation of scientists with the skills to address complex sustainability challenges.
One of these awards was granted to Brooks Abel, assistant professor of chemistry at the College of Chemistry, along with collaborators Christopher Cooper at Washington University in St. Louis, and Debra Audus and Sarah Orski at the National Institute of Standards and Technology. Their project uses AI to design a new class of plastics that can all be recycled together, eliminating the need for costly and inefficient sorting.
Today's plastic waste problem is massive, with billions of tons of plastic being produced for tens of thousands of different applications. The biggest roadblock to effective recycling is the sheer variety of plastic types. Each type has a unique chemical structure and requires a specific, separate recycling process. This makes it nearly impossible to efficiently sort and process the mixed plastic waste streams that we generate every day, leading to the vast majority of plastic ending up in landfills or polluting the environment.
The award-winning project addresses this challenge head-on by using AI to design new “architecturally varied and deconstructable (ADD) polymers.” These polymers are derived from a few simple, common monomers, yet the AI can design them to have a wide range of properties to suit different products, from a rigid bottle to a flexible film.
The key is that all these different plastics would be designed to break down into their original components through a single, universal recycling process. This means products of all different types, functions, and lifetimes could be integrated into a single recycling stream, dramatically simplifying the process and making recycling far more efficient.
This award not only recognizes a truly innovative approach to polymer science but also highlights the importance of combining fundamental research with cutting-edge technology to solve our most pressing global challenges. Through this work, the project aims to create a new generation of scientists and a more sustainable future for plastics.