Safe and durable, plastics have long pervaded our everyday lives and facilitated convenience. However, as resources are depleted and heaps of trash accumulate, plastics are becoming more expensive and unsustainable. What if we made plastics greener -- producing them from plants instead of oil? Instead of harmful chemicals, what if we used natural compounds? What if plastics could be composted, recycled, and used for energy? Marc Hillmyer, Presidential McKnight Endowed Chair at the University of Minnesota, is developing new polymeric materials that can make sustainable, environmentally friendly plastics. It turns out, similar kinds of advanced polymers can also help purify water through advanced membrane technology. This allows Professor Hillmyer to leverage his expertise to tackle two of the greatest environmental challenges facing society today.

The big challenge that comes with creating polymers is to reconcile its chemistry implications with its economical applications. To reduce environmental harms and increase economic benefits, Professor Hillmyer hopes to derive polymers from waste biomass, and eventually be able to produce compostable plastics and purify industrial waste into drinkable water. With a strong emphasis on the design, synthesis, and characterization of new macromolecular materials and on the development of sustainable polymers from renewable resources, the Hillmyer Research Group has also established several formal cooperative relationships with other research groups at the University of Minnesota. This extensive infrastructure and collaborative nature of the faculty enables a dynamic research environment, and to this advantage Professor Hillmyer hopes to accelerate breakthroughs in the varied applications of polymer technology.

Current research projects include:

• The New Elastic, Tough, Tunable, Degradable and Renewable Plastics: There has been a recent breakthrough for the generation of new elastic, tough, and tunable plastics that come from sugar. Hillmyer and Colleagues found that, when fed with sugar, certain microorganisms began to generate molecules that the group could then polymerize and convert into plastic molecules. This is an exciting milestone that integrates microbial engineering controlled polymerization with advanced materials properties, and further advancements in this area can help us out-compete petroleum-based materials at similar cost.
• New Membranes with High Porosity and Small Pore Size: Dr. Hillmyer and his group are creating polymer membranes with a very high fraction of pore space with narrow size distributions at the nanometer scale to separate viruses from water. Collaborating within the field of nanotechnology, the Hillmyer Research Group hopes to generate nanostructured membranes with high selectivity and high flux that even enable the conversion of, salt water into potable water.