PLSM.6540 - Plastics Engineering: Plastics and Sustainability

Program Overview

Overview

PART 1

• Review the current relationship between plastic and the environment
• Overview of plastic materials and plastic production processes
• Accumulation of plastic waste in the natural environment and the toxicology of plastics and their additives
• Waste management solutions for different types of plastics. Both traditional and emerging recycling methods will be highlighted, with particular emphasis on mechanical and chemical recycling processes. In addition, analysis methods and instrumentation to characterize recycled plastics — and the differences in virgin polymers and recycled polymers — will be introduced.

PART 2

• Detailed overview of current definitions and standards for bio-derived, biodegradable plastics and elastomers
• Design criteria for sustainable plastics based on a brief overview of life cycle analysis in the context of plastics
• Introduction to sustainable material options available currently — plastics, elastomers and additives — that can be obtained from renewable resources. Detailed descriptions will be provided for naturally occurring polymers including natural rubber, cellulose and starch as well as polymers such as polylactic acid (PLA), polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), and polybutylene succinate (PBS) that can be produced from naturally occurring precursors. The class material will also touch upon polymers from natural oils and additives from natural resources including natural fillers, fibers and clay nanocomposites. A brief discussion of processing these emerging bio-based materials will also be included.
• A brief introduction to Life Cycle Analysis (LCA) and general design criteria for sustainable plastics

About the Facilitators

Dr. Ramaswamy Nagarajan is a professor in the Plastics Engineering Department and Faculty Director of HEROES at UMass Lowell. Dr. Nagarajan's research is in the area of "greener" routes to the synthesis and processing of polymeric materials. Dr. Nagarajan has developed enzymatic/biomimetic routes for synthesizing electrically conductive and photoresponsive polymers. His teaching interests include polymers from renewable resources, rubber technology, thermal and morphological characterization of materials. He has authored roughly 30 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and is named co-inventor in seven patents related to enzyme catalysis.

Dr. Wan-Ting (Grace) Chen was a postdoc research associate in the School of Chemical Engineering at Purdue University prior to joining the faculty at UMass Lowell. She received her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the National Taiwan University, and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Biological and Agricultural Engineering from the University of Illinois. Her Ph.D. research work focused on developing a synergistically integrated waste-to-fuel system that simultaneously produces biofuel and treats wet biowaste via algae growth and hydrothermal liquefaction (HTL).  In particular, her work contributes to the area of upgrading complex HTL biocrude oil converted from biowaste to transportation fuels by distillation, esterification and catalytic treatments. Her ongoing work focuses on valorization of plastic waste into useful products, including pristine polymers, fuels, specialty chemicals and monomers.