Prof. Dr. Eugene Y.-X Chen

Colorado State University

报告时间：10月8日10：00-11：30

报告地点: 闵行校区霞光楼200

邀请人: 周永丰 教授，杨寄 副教授

报告摘要(Abstract)：

The traditional multi-material design for plastic products employs multiple, often non-biodegradable or non-recyclable materials composed of different chemical species. Consequently, even a single product uses mixed plastics, and post-consumer plastic products in mixed waste streams are exponentially more complex. While this product design delivers desired lifetime performance for different parts of a product or products, it drastically complicates mechanical, chemical, and other emerging recycling processes. Hence, there are pressing needs to address both the recycling of today’s mixed plastics and the more sustainable design for plastic products. In this context, this presentation will first discuss our universal dynamic crosslinking strategy recently developed for closed-loop mechanical upcycling of mixed commodity plastics into value-added vitrimers as multiblock copolymers with thermoset-like properties and thermoplastic-like reprocessability. Next, the presentation will focus on the emerging mono-material product design with circular and/or biodegradable polymers made of a single monomer type, delivering tailorable properties characteristic of all common types of polymers, which is achieved by engineering structural complexity (polymer stereomicrostructure, topology and architecture, and monomer functionality/orthogonality) without changing their chemical composition for recycling simplicity.

报告人简介(Brief introduction)：

Eugene Chen received his undergraduate education in China and Ph.D. degree from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1995. After a postdoctoral stint at Northwestern University, he joined The Dow Chemical Company in late 1997, where he was promoted to Project Leader. Two and a half years later he moved to Colorado State University as Assistant Professor in August 2000 and rose through the ranks to become Full Professor in 2009. He has been appointed as the Millennial Professor of Polymer Science and Sustainability since 2012, the John K. Stille Endowed Chair Professor in Chemistry since 2017, and a University Distinguished Professor since 2020. His current research is centered on polymer science, sustainable chemistry, and molecular catalysis. Selected recent honors and awards include: Excellence in Commercialization Award by the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association; The Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award by the U.S. Government’s Environmental Protection Agency; and The Arthur Cope Scholar Award by the American Chemical Society.