Macromolecular Engineering of Sustainable Polymers

Sustainability plays a critical role in promoting economy and societal development. The growth of polymers has largely relied on commodity materials such as polyethylene, polypropylene, polystyrene, and polyvinyl chloride, which aggravate the global plastics crisis. The last two decades have overseen a rapidly evolving field of sustainable polymers. We have spearheaded a research program on the transformation of diverse biomass into sustainable intermediates, monomers, and polymers. Our contribution lies in the designs of macromolecular structures and compositions that significantly enhance thermal and mechanical properties of bioplastics. In this presentation, we will describe the use of macromolecular engineering approaches to tackling one of the field's fundamental challenges—chain entanglements—by devising various architectures, such as ultra-high molecular weight polymers, pentablock architectures, supramolecular entanglement, and dynamic crosslinking.