Polymers are essential materials in modern society with their production and consumption increasing exponentially. Post-consumer polymer waste is equally growing and leading to pervasive ecological impacts, threatening planetary boundaries and human health. The emerging concept of a circular bioeconomy unravels opportunities to create a sustainable society using abundant and economical bioresources while lowering the net carbon footprint by extending material life cycle. Enabling a circular bioeconomy for polymers requires an integrated, systems-based approach that considers biomass feedstock, green polymer synthesis, recycling-by-design and biodegradability while minimizing waste and energy costs. Some of the most promising and topical approaches to address these challenges include leveraging renewable biomass surrogates for petroleum-derived monomers to create synthetic biopolymers; directly utilizing native biopolymers; redesigning manufacturing and recycling processes to be less wasteful and consume less energy. Yet, for biomass-based materials there are historical challenges to address including inefficient separations and/or poor conversion yields; lowering waste and energy requirements for transformations; improving compatibility with legacy and emerging manufacturing methods; enabling economical scaling of processes; matching performance metrics for petroleum-derived polymers; ensuring benign environmental degradation. In addition, legacy waste (and currently produced) polymers must be integrated into the circular bioeconomy. State-of-the-art upcycling approaches employing efficient polymer deconstruction and/or functionalization techniques can valorize waste materials while re-integrating them into the material cycle. This symposium centers on these topics to address this multifaceted global challenge which requires collaboration from academic, industry, and government partners possessing expertise in chemistry, chemical and process engineering, environmental and materials science, among others.

biomimetic polymer polymerization recycling