About the Center for Plastics Innovation

Since 2020, the Center for Plastics Innovation (CPI) has been a part of a cohort of Energy Frontier Research Centers (EFRCs) supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences. Basic Energy Sciences currently funds over 40 EFRCs “to lay the foundations for new energy technologies and to advance DOE missions in energy, environment, and national security.” 

CPI was established as a transformative research center, bringing a fresh focus on the global problem of plastics waste as an EFRC — finding the balance between meeting demand for lightweight and resilient materials, while also thwarting the environmental threats of plastics waste and pollution.  In our first four years, we advanced efficient and selective deconstruction of polyolefins (POs) (e.g., polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP)) into valuable products, unraveling the mechanisms of catalyst-polymer interactions, shifting the plastics deconstruction landscape via microwave-assisted process intensification, developing selective chemical and biological transformations to upcycle plastics waste, generating artificial intelligence (AI)-driven data science tools, and evaluating the impact of macromolecular features on deconstruction efficiency and selectivity. We will leverage these scientific achievements to continue advancing circularity, focusing on new areas that broaden our impact across the plastics life cycle.

Specific to our approach is the integration of multiscale considerations of evolving materials complexity during upcycling, predictive strategies to accelerate discovery, and less energy-intensive processing considerations. These objectives will nucleate a transition from the current high-energy and lower-value landscape of polymer recycling to a new frontier of polymer upcycling strategies that utilize low-temperature and selective catalytic and engineering approaches to obtain high-value and functional materials.

Our Mission

To develop energy-efficient, selective, and tolerant chemo- and bio-catalytic and synthetic pathways to valorize diverse plastics waste streams and dramatically increase circularity.

Our Research Plan

CPI will explore deconstruction routes that synergize chemical and enzymatic approaches to produce building blocks from heteroatomic, polymers; define pathways to enable tailored deconstruction of waste streams with compositional complexity; and employ methods to impart selective sites for degradation, all to nucleate a paradigm shift in the plastics life cycle via detailed mechanistic understanding. Additionally, we will develop cross-cutting platforms and tools to enable plastics circularity that will have long-lasting influence plastics design, manufacturing, processing, and (re)use. Moreover, the coupling of experiments, modeling, artificial intelligence (AI), polymer chemistry/engineering, and life-cycle analysis (LCA)/technoeconomic assessment (TEA) in CPI will define new frontiers in trainee development with direct impacts on sustainable manufacturing.

Our Commitment to Promoting Inclusivity and Equity in Research (PIER)

As CPI research is committed to transforming the culture around plastics, we are equally committed to promoting an inclusive and equitable space for this research to take place. We strive to impact the broader STEM and sustainability community through leadership in inclusive and equitable practices within and surrounding CPI.