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Polymer Scientist Applies Scientific Technique To Remedy Biggest Environmental Challenges Whereas Making Lives Higher

Kat Knauer loved science courses as a younger woman however her understanding that science might be used as an instrument for good was solidified when a beloved member of the family grew in poor health.

Her childhood canine, Penny, was having a extreme response to the pesticides her mom utilized to fireside ant mounds dotting the panorama round their south Florida house. Knauer turned involved for Penny’s well being and turned to the scientific technique for potential options.

For her science honest venture that yr, she selected to display and check environmentally pleasant strategies for hearth ant extermination. The simplest technique for dispatching hearth ants to the afterlife? That ubiquitous southern staple, instantaneous grits. She found, amongst different issues, that the tiny ant our bodies couldn’t deal with the excessive sodium content material or speedy enlargement of powdered instantaneous grits.

She ended up successful the science honest. Then she gained the state science honest. Knauer grew shocked after which intrigued that her buddies, household, lecturers, and neighborhood have been excited in regards to the science outcomes.

The impression surrounding her experiment offered the younger Knauer with an impression that science may remedy our hardest environmental issues whereas making individuals’s (and pets’) lives higher.

Right this moment, Knauer continues to be pushed to unveil scientific options to resolve challenges for not solely her family members but in addition the entire world itself. As a polymer scientist and the chief know-how officer of the NREL-led Bio-Optimized Applied sciences to maintain Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Setting (BOTTLE™) consortium, Knauer is accountable for serving to remedy one of many world’s biggest challenges—plastic air pollution.

BOTTLE is a multiorganization consortium supported by the U.S. Division of Vitality’s Bioenergy Applied sciences Workplace and Superior Supplies and Manufacturing Applied sciences Workplace. The consortium is targeted on growing new chemical upcycling methods for right now’s plastics and redesigning tomorrow’s plastics to be recyclable by design.

Within the interview under (edited for size and readability), Knauer mentioned the evolution of her profession and the way NREL, the BOTTLE group, and its dedicated companions are enthusiastic about discovering science-based options to our plastics waste downside.

Inform me what led you to be a polymer scientist centered on our plastics downside?

My success on the science honest was definitely an affect, and as I grew older it turned clear that I actually loved math and chemistry. When it got here time for college, I selected chemical engineering as a result of it appeared like this excellent mixture of calculus and chemistry.

I used to be all the time enthusiastic about environmentalism. Whereas at Florida State College I used to be lucky to do polymer analysis at a brand new campus institute centered on supplies science. There I discovered that polymers have been the first elements of plastics.

I additionally got here to appreciate that we had this large plastic waste downside polluting the planet, and polymers have been the foundation reason behind it. But polymers and polymer chemistry have made the world a greater place and have improved the standard of life for many of society in some ways. However polymers aren’t unhealthy. It’s simply that we’ve abused them.

We have now obligations as scientists to discover a answer for plastic waste mitigation, and I felt like if I acquired a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry, individuals would hearken to me and suppose I used to be an skilled, all of which might assist me make a much bigger impression on our plastics downside.

After your Ph.D. you labored for the personal sector. How did these experiences impression your profession?

My ideas have been that if I labored for a big plastics and polymer science company, I may begin making an impression straight away by serving to commercialize plastic waste mitigation applied sciences quicker than staying in academia. I began engaged on recycling applied sciences and discovered how recycling can develop into commercially and economically viable. Nevertheless, I found rapidly that giant firms will be gradual and threat adversarial with limitations to innovation. I wanted to maneuver quicker.

I made the leap to a startup firm, referred to as Novoloop, run by this superb group of ladies and helped develop a chemical recycling pathway for hard-to-recycle movie waste, like grocery baggage and pallet shrink wrap. The pathway we developed oxidized that movie waste right down to useful constructing blocks to make new polymer supplies. And this polymer—a thermoplastic polyurethane or TPU—that I labored on for a few years has reached business viability as the only of a operating shoe.

That’s good to see all that tough work flip right into a sustainable, business product.

Sure, the best half is that we have been taking one thing that’s thought of single use and so low worth like a grocery bag and making it into a fabric that’s now going into $200 trainers. That is upcycling at its most interesting.

So, your transition from the personal to public sector was finalized by incomes the chief know-how officer (CTO) position for BOTTLE, which has a pleasant ring to it.

Sure, positively.

What made NREL and BOTTLE appear to be a very good match?

I liked my time at Novoloop. It’s the place I really turned a greater chemist. I additionally skilled the pivotal strategy of commercialization by taking an thought from bench scale to an actual product. But, after experiencing the manufacturing of recycled TPU for a operating shoe, I noticed I wished to work on a mess of applied sciences and make a much bigger dent in as some ways attainable. I wished to analysis your complete plastics waste stream and provide chain.

Whereas at Novoloop, I attended the Nationwide Academies’ Chemical Sciences Roundtable the place they invited scientists to speak in regards to the plastic waste downside. Gregg Beckham, senior analysis fellow at NREL, spoke on the roundtable and laid out his imaginative and prescient for a brand new plastics upcycling consortium, what would develop into BOTTLE. I used to be excited in regards to the potential. This was what I wished to do.

Gregg and I spoke, and he inspired me to do a seminar at NREL. I did, and once I was right here, I knew that is the place I wished to be. The individuals right here, the caliber of labor that was occurring, and Gregg’s imaginative and prescient for BOTTLE have been aligned with my mission and targets as a scientist.

Over the following two years, BOTTLE turned actual. That’s when Gregg reached again out to me, and we began speaking about how I may develop into concerned. Our conversations developed into the CTO position.

It looks as if every part aligned effectively between your self and NREL. What are your core obligations as BOTTLE CTO?

It is a distinctive position in that it’s a hybrid—I’m half enterprise growth (BD) and half researcher. I handle strategic exterior partnerships by growing, defining, and main particular analysis tasks with these companion firms. For the BD half, I present U.S. and world firms how BOTTLE applied sciences can meet their sustainability or plastics circularity wants. I additionally outline with them what a venture at NREL would appear like and the outputs we may realistically ship to them.

For the researcher half, as soon as now we have a venture settlement, I then pull a group collectively and begin executing and dealing on that know-how for the consumer.

My analysis falls in larger know-how readiness degree (TRL) ranges. All the pieces I do with BOTTLE appears to be like at DOE-funded applied sciences with a TRL of perhaps 3. I take these to strategic companions and say, with this a lot cash we may get you as much as TRL 6, pre-pilot degree, and we can assist you deploy and commercialize.

We have now a various portfolio of business partnerships, all several types of tasks with some hitting the deployment section. We’re additionally spinning off startup firms. We’re extremely centered on making these plastic applied sciences part of the U.S. financial system as rapidly as attainable.

Talking of these partnerships, I’ve heard that you simply’re a tremendous recruiter of BOTTLE business companions. Are you able to share with us any secret sauce on your success?

It’s not one thing scientists all the time love to listen to, however you do need to be personable to get these firms to wish to discuss to you. As well as, I’ve the backing of NREL and all the good applied sciences and status that comes with this group. However I additionally suppose a giant a part of that is that I’m brutally clear and sincere with these firms. I’m very real looking with them and upfront with what’s attainable. I additionally speak about prices straight away in order that they’re not shocked and shocked later. I believe firms respect this transparency.

Additionally, the mannequin we’ve adopted in BOTTLE, which I alluded to earlier than, is that after executing that settlement, I don’t disappear. I stay their level individual. I lead the venture and I mentor the researchers and the postdocs, and I write the papers and I make the shows. I believe a constant line of communication with the individual that constructed up this belief with them is one thing they’ve actually come to worth. And I actually respect it.

BOTTLE has been up and operating for a bit. What are some large challenges you’ve overcome?

At BOTTLE now we have two challenges taking place in tandem. One is the right way to recycle right now’s waste as effectively as attainable with the very best financial profit and the bottom environmental footprint. The opposite is the right way to rethink waste as a result of the plastics used right now have been by no means designed to disintegrate. That is redesigning and making new supplies for the long run which are extra inherently recyclable by design, biocompatible, biobased, and doubtlessly biodegradable.

At first, we pitched firms on how they may redesign their materials and packaging in a sustainable method. The businesses weren’t receptive. They have been involved in simply recycling their plastic trash right now. I do suppose that the true answer is popping it off on the faucet by way of redesign moderately than simply preserve making as a lot as we’re doing now the identical precise method and hoping a market evolves to recycle it.

So how did you persuade these firms to work on redesigning their plastics?

After we found that we may redesign these merchandise at value or barely above, that’s when it shifted, and extra firms began listening. Our first large win we had was with The North Face, who’s funding a venture to interchange the present polyester fiber used of their attire gear with a biobased polyester that will likely be simply as strong however has a biodegradation pathway.

And that’s not as a result of we would like clothes to biodegrade. Round 46% of microplastics within the setting come from plastic fibers which are shed throughout garments washing. As a substitute of determining the right way to cease all shedding as a result of individuals aren’t going to cease washing their garments, we pitched the corporate on redesigning their materials to be pure, biocompatible, and never persist within the setting for 400 years.

OK, one final query. Should you have been queen for a day and had limitless energy to make one change on the earth, what would it not be?

There are these little plastic packages that maintain a small serving of mustard or ketchup for instance. These sachet packets are probably the most over engineered supplies on the earth with one thing like eight totally different layers of utterly several types of polymers or metals and are unrecyclable. In locations like Indonesia and the Philippines these little sachets make up almost 50% of their waste streams. So, I might make a recycling financial system infrastructure for these sachet packets primarily based on materials that’s recyclable and extremely desired.

Study extra about NREL’s bioenergy analysis and BOTTLE options to mitigate plastic waste air pollution.

Courtesy of NREL. By Justin Rickard