The pollution caused by plastic waste lingering on the Earth's surface is a problem of massive scale. A key challenge in replacing current nondegradable plastics with those that are degradable is simple economics: the raw materials needed to make degradable plastics are often more expensive than those used in today's nondegradable plastics. Raw materials that are inexpensive, readily available, and have low environmental impact are thus highly desirable in the quest for sustainability. In this project, Dr. Jia and his team at the University of Akron are developing catalysts that produce plastics that are degradable in the environment and derived from low-cost raw materials. The catalysts are based on the earth-abundant metal, nickel, adding another sustainable feature to his group's research. Dr. Jia is actively engaged in outreach activities to engage students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. These activities include summer research internships in Dr. Jia's laboratory and are directed at providing scientific research opportunities for high school students, in particular those who are economically underprivileged, thereby encouraging their interest in STEM careers.
With funding from the Chemical Catalysis Program of the NSF Division of Chemistry, Dr. Jia of the University of Akron is developing novel catalytic carbonylative polymerizations for the synthesis of polymers with various organic carbonyl functional groups in their backbones from co-monomers with vastly dissimilar reactivities (e.g., ethylene and ethylene oxide). The research is focusing on the mechanistic understanding of these catalytic polymerizations, the development of nickel catalysts following zwitterionic design principles, and the evaluation of the performance of the new catalysts. Dr. Jia is actively engaged in STEM outreach programs. His outreach activities focus on providing opportunities to students with economically underprivileged backgrounds and recruiting them into STEM fields.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
