Our Research

OVERVIEW

CSP researchers work to discover new, efficient, non-toxic, and catalytically mediated chemical transformations of biomass and other natural product-based feedstocks into both established and new polymer ingredients.

RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

Organic, inorganic, and biosynthetic chemistry

FOCUS: Scalable, catalytic conversions of relevant and readily available small molecules; “Rewiring” industrially tractable microbial hosts to create a diverse array of polymer precursors by processes amenable to scale-up for industrial bioreactors.

FEATURE PUBLICATIONS

• Fieser, M. E.; Schimler, S. D.; Mitchell, L. A.; Wilborn, E. G.; John, A.; Hogan, L. T.; Benson, B.; LaPointe, A. M.; Tolman, W. B. Dual-catalytic decarbonylation of fatty acid methyl esters to form olefins. Chem Commun. 2018, 54, 7669–7672.
• McClintock, M. K; Fahnhorst, G. W.; Hoye, T. R.; Zhang, K. Engineering the production of dipicolinic acid in E. coli. Metabolic Engineering 2018, 48, 208–217.
• Blaisse, M. R.; Fu, B.; Chang, M. C. Y. Structural and biochemical studies of substrate selectivity in Ascaris suumthiolases. Biochemistry 2018, 57, 3155–3166.
• Park, D. S.; Abdelrahman, O. A.; Vinter, K. P.; Howe, P.; Bond, J. Q.; Reineke, T. M.; Zhang, K.; Dauenhauer, P. J. Multi-functional cascade catalysis of itaconic acid hydrodeoxygenation to 3-methyl-tetrahydrofuran. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2018, 6, 9394–9402.
• Trotta, J. T.; Jin, M.; Stawiasz, K. J.; Michaudel, Q.; Chen, W.-L.; Fors, B. P. Synthesis of methylene butyrolactone polymers from itaconic acid. J. Polym. Sci. Part A.: Polym. Chem. 2017, 55, 2730–2737.

INVESTIGATORS

OVERVIEW

CSP researchers work to discover new sustainable polymers with precisely controlled molecular structures and to establish crucial relationships between chemical structure, morphology, and performance properties.

RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

Catalysis, high-throughput experimentation, theoretical studies, mechanistic studies of polymerization processes, polymer properties, polymer morphology

FOCUS: Broaden the scope of existing polymerization strategies and develop entirely new methods to discover new sustainable polymers with advanced properties that are better than their petroleum-based counterparts.

FEATURE PUBLICATIONS

• Klemes, M. J.; Ling, Y.; Chiapasco, M.; Alsbaiee, A.; Helbling, D. E.; Dichtel, W. R. Phenolation of cyclodextrin polymers controls their lead and organic micropollutant adsorption. Chem. Sci., 2018.
• Ishibashi, J. S. A.; Kalow, J. A. Vitrimeric silicone elastomers enabled by dynamic Meldrum’s acid-derived cross-links. ACS Macro Lett. 2018, 7, 482–486.
• Yu, X.; Jia, J.; Xu, S.; Lao, K. U.; Sanford, M. J.; Ramakrishnan, R. K.; Nazarenko, S. I.; Hoye, T. R.; Coates, G. W.; Distasio Jr., R. A. Unraveling substituent effects on the glass transition temperatures of biorenewable polyesters. Nature Communications, 2018, 9, 2880.
• Lillie, L.M.; Tolman, W.B.; Reineke, T.M. Structure/property relationships in copolymers comprising renewable isosorbide, glucarodilactone, and 2,5-bis(hydroxymethyl)furan subunits. Polym. Chem. 2017, 8, 3746–3754.
• Watts, A.; Kurokawa, N.; Hillmyer, M. A. Strong, resilient, and sustainable aliphatic polyester thermoplastic elastomers. Biomacromolecules 2017, 18, 1845–1854.

INVESTIGATORS

OVERVIEW

CSP researchers work to discover and establish polymeric architectures that provide superior performance while in use and have innocuous end-lives including controlled degradation, chemical and traditional recycling pathways.

RESEARCH PORTFOLIO

Polymer architecture, degradation, chemical recycling, recycling

FOCUS: Study and improve the performance properties of polymers, in particular as generated by the first two Grand Challenge Project Areas.

FEATURE PUBLICATIONS

• De Hoe, G. X.; Zumstein, M. T.; Tiegs, B. J.; Brutman, J. P.; McNeil, K.; Sander, M.; Coates, G. W.; Hillmyer, M. A. Sustainable polyester elastomers from lactones: Synthesis, properties, and enzymatic hydrolyzability. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2018, 140, 963–973.
• Fahnhorst, G. W.; Hoye, T. R. A carbomethoxylated polyvalerolactone from malic acid: Synthesis and divergent chemical recycling. ACS Macro Lett. 2018, 7, 143–147.
• Fortman, D. J.; Brutman, J. P.; De Hoe, G. X.; Snyder, R. L.; Dichtel, W. R.; Hillmyer, M. A. Approaches to sustainable and continually recyclable cross-linked polymers. ACS Sustainable Chem. Eng. 2018, 6, 11145–11459.
• Lillie, L. M.; Tolman, W. B.; Reineke, T. M. Degradable and renewably-sourced polyester-thioethers by photo-initiated thiol-ene polymerization. Polym. Chem. 2018, 9, 3272-3278
• Eagan, J. M; Xu, J.; Di Girolamo, R.; Thurber, C. M.; Macosko, C. W.; LaPointe, A. M.; Bates, F. S.; Coates, G.W. Combining polyethylene and polypropylene: Enhanced performance with PE/iPP multiblock polymers. Science 2017, 355, 814–816.

INVESTIGATORS