Current Position: Staff Researcher, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Ph.D. Institution: RWTH Aachen University (Advisor: Alexander Böker)

Princeton Postdoctoral Research:
Polyethylene terephthalate (PET), high-density polyethylene (HDPE), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), low-density polyethylene (LDPE), polypropylene (PP), polystyrene (PS), with the term ‘big six’, consist of 87% of all plastics waste up to ~330,000,000,000 lbs, but with <10% recovered every year. To a sustainability viewpoint, 1 ton of plastic recycling can save 130,000,000 kJ, which equals to 22 bbl oil and potentially 176 billion USD for world scale. The key problem is how to mechanically or chemically recycle these used plastics. One industrially-viable route is to produce “high χ” multi-block copolymers that fuse different polymer segments, particularly that bridges the major commercial polymer classes (i.e., PE, PET, PC). These “high χ” multi-block copolymers are good compatibilizers to blend the corresponding immiscible plastics for upcycling to higher-value materials with lower sorting costs. To achieve these, telechelic PE, PET, and PC are synthesized using different polymerization techniques. For example, carboxylic-terminated PE can be synthesized using ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) of cyclooctene (COE) follow by hydrogenation. Utilizing model reaction, end-functionalized PE, PET, and PC with different molecular weights can be linked together forming PE/PET/PC multiblock copolymers. With the multiblock copolymers as compatibilizers, mechanical and chemical properties of different plastic blends will be studied.