Polymers from sugars: development of emerging sustainable plastics and investigation of their impact on the marine environment

Key institutions such as the RSC have identified significant areas of research to combat plastic pollution including understanding and controlling plastic degradation and developing new sustainable plastics(1). This project aims to combat both of these areas using a multidisciplinary approach. The principal aims of the project are to synthesise emerging and novel polymers and analyse their impact on the marine environment using biodegradation and ecotoxicity studies.

To start off, xylose derived polymers (polyethers, polyesters, polycarbonates) will be synthesised, characterised and converted to well defined particles to be transferred to collaborators at Plymouth Marine Laboratory for ecotoxicity tests. This will form the start of a feedback loop to synthesise benign, less toxic polymers. This project has the potential to identify important structure/property relationships which affect the biodegradability and ecotoxicity of polymers in the environment.

This could potentially be used to design less environmentally harmful plastics in the future. This project relates to several NERC priority areas of research including the productive environment and healthy environment priorities. The second and third supervisors are researchers at the Plymouth Marine Laboratory and have experience running biodegradation and ecotoxicity studies in the marine environment.

(1) Science to enable sustainable plastics - A white paper from the 8th Chemical Sciences and Society Summit (CS3); 2020. rsc.li/progressive-plastics-report.