NSF Award
2404191
With the support of the Macromolecular, Supramolecular and Nanochemistry Program in the Division of Chemistry, Professors Wooley and Darensbourg of Texas A&M University will develop synthetic methodologies that harness the chemical diversity of natural products and consume carbon dioxide for the sustainable production of high value macromolecular materials. These materials will possess properties that allow them to replace current fossil-fuel-based plastics, while also being capable of undergoing degradation or depolymerization to regenerate the natural building blocks once they have completed their useful function. The expected significance for the proposed work includes an advancement of knowledge of synthetic methodology for sustainable polymer production that leads to societal benefits by transforming natural products into polymer materials, thereby overcoming issues with both a lack of sustainability of petrochemical feedstocks and environmental persistence of most current commodity polymers. Moreover, the proposed materials would address an ever-pressing issue of the loss of health, welfare and life to birds, fish and other wildlife that ingest non-degradable and non-digestible plastics. Translation of fundamental academic research advances to achieve ambitious practical broader societal and environmental impacts will be facilitated by entrepreneurial activities. Primary outcomes of the proposed work will be (1) diverse and extensive education, training and recruiting of the next generation STEM workforce with strong foundational knowledge in chemistry, (2) advances to synthetic polymer chemistry techniques, (3) creation and translation of novel materials that have the potential to positively impact society, and (4) education and outreach to the broader community. <br/><br/>The proposed work is intended to advance knowledge of chemical methods that afford naturally-derived polymers, which possess properties that may allow them to displace current commodity polymers, while being sustainable and having mechanisms for degradation. The complementary expertise of the PIs in organic, organometallic and polymer chemistry and catalysis is combined to employ methods to convert carbohydrates or nucleic acids into cyclic ether, carbonate or thiocarbonate monomers that retain high degrees of functionality, followed by their ring-opening copolymerization, ring-opening polymerization, and in-situ structural metamorphoses that result in transformation into functional macromolecular structures across the platforms of polycarbonates and sulfur analogs. Rigorous characterization studies will probe the ability to access polymer materials possessing properties that are unique, including through exploration of stereochemical effects and regiochemical outcomes, and finally, their chemical modification, depolymerization and/or degradation will be investigated.<br/><br/>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.
