“Sustainable Polymers: Physics of New Materials, Design for Sustainability, and End-of-Life”: A DPOLY Short Course at the 2022 American Physical Society Annual Meeting

TECHNICAL AND NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY:

This conference award will provide partial support for travel expenses of students, postdoctoral researchers, and high school teachers to participate in the Short Course "Sustainable Polymers: Physics of New Materials, Design for Sustainability, and End-of-Life" at the 2022 American Physical Society March Meeting.

This short course will offer the opportunity to advance knowledge in the field of polymer sustainability through instruction from experts and engaging discussions among participants. This short course will bring a focused perspective to this area, with emphasis on physical properties and fundamental physics of polymers and how they may be designed with consideration of sustainability goals and metrics.

Towards this goal, researchers will come together from cross-disciplinary areas, including polymer physics, polymer chemistry, and materials science, and address the full life cycle of polymers, from sustainable origins to design for ease of end-of-life handling and re-use.

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.