Austin Evans
University of Florida, FL·Chemistry·Early-career
Plastics are made of long molecular chains called polymers. Changing or breaking down these chains in a targeted, controlled way is difficult, and this is part of why plastic waste is hard to recycle.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
polymer chemistry
electrochemistry
electrolysis
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2031
What they work on
- Measure how polymer molecular weight, topology, and corona chemistry, controlled through controlled radical polymerization, govern diffusion, electrode sorption, and electrolysis rates of N-hydroxyphthalimide ester-functionalized (meth)acrylates.
- Test whether electrode surface interactions destabilize electrochemically generated radical intermediates enough to drive depropagation, recovering pure monomer from chemically challenging polymers.
- Explore asymmetric macromolecular electrolysis on chiral functionalized carbon electrodes to bias hydrogen-atom addition to carbon radicals and produce tacticity-defined polyolefin copolymers.
More about the research
This project explores using electric current, through electrolysis at an electrode surface, to modify polymers, take them apart, or recover their building blocks (monomers). The key question is how a large polymer's interaction with the electrode controls which reaction happens. The answers could also produce specialty materials for adhesives, space-based protective coatings, or barrier layers in electronics.
Why it matters
Plastic waste is hard to break down selectively. Electrochemical methods that unzip polymers back to pure monomer could help recycle plastics that resist other approaches. The same tools could make hard-to-access specialty polymers for adhesives, protective coatings for spacecraft, and barrier layers for electronics. They could also support on-demand chemical manufacturing.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Christina Cooley
Trinity University, TX·Chemistry·Early-career
Identify dark monomers that produce fluorogenic polymers in aqueous solution using ARGET atom transfer radical polymerization (ATRP), a controlled chain-growth method run with a regenerated catalyst.
Rebecca Braslau
University of California-Santa Cruz, CA·Chemistry
Develop mild conditions to eliminate hydrogen chloride (HCl) from PVC, converting its repeat units into polyenes, chains rich in carbon–carbon double bonds.
Joel Kaar
University of Colorado Boulder, CO·Engineering
Test whether esterases, enzymes that cut ester bonds, can break down PET by alcoholysis in nonaqueous solvents, using lipases such as cutinase as model enzymes.
The school
University of Florida: 65 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 795 research doctorates a year.
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