Chemistry Department is pleased to host Chemistry and Biochemistry Seminar Series, Tuesday’s at 12:10 pm. Please see Ithaca College Chemistry web page.
https://www.ithaca.edu/academics/school-humanities-and-sciences/chemist…
Guest Speaker Professor Christopher L. Lewis Ph.D. of Rochester Institute of Technology will be joining us on Tuesday, November 1st in CNS 333 at 12:10 pm will present:
Engineering Biodegradable Plastics to Meet End-of-Life Requirements
Traditional plastics present a unique societal challenge in that their high usage coupled with their inability to biodegrade results in the rapid accumulation of waste. While recycling efforts aim to reduce this problem, only a small fraction of plastics are recycled; the remainder find their way to landfills or even worse, are released into the environment. Biodegradable plastics (BPs), such as poly(lactic acid) (PLA), have long been used in biomedical applications due to their ability to depolymerize into benign fragments that are easily cleared by the body. More recently, attention has focused on the usage of BPs for other applications (e.g. consumer, industrial and agricultural), where alternative end-of-life scenarios, such as compositing or anaerobic digestion (AD), may be possible. In this talk, Professor Lewis will provide an overview of his research program followed by a discussion of recent efforts aimed at tailoring the degradation behavior of BPs. Highlighted examples will explore the role of composition on material properties (mechanical, thermal, rheological) and degradation performance for BPs with potential applications ranging from agricultural much films to disposable packaging.