Rebecca Braslau
University of California-Santa Cruz, CA·Chemistry
Polyvinyl chloride (PVC), used in pipes and many other products, is notoriously hard to reuse or recycle, so most of it ends up in landfills. Its backbone is a chain of carbon atoms, though, and that carbon could be a resource.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
polyvinyl chloride
polybutadiene
synthetic rubber
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Develop mild conditions to eliminate hydrogen chloride (HCl) from PVC, converting its repeat units into polyenes, chains rich in carbon–carbon double bonds.
- Break PVC-derived polyenes into specific dienes such as 1,5-hexadiene using olefin metathesis, a catalytic double-bond swapping reaction, with added small alkenes.
- Upcycle polybutadiene and related synthetic rubbers by olefin metathesis to release 1,5-hexadiene, and reduce the products to alkanes free of E/Z isomers.
- Establish tandem conditions in which double-bond formation and olefin metathesis occur together, enabling targeted harvesting of alkenes from discarded polymers.
More about the research
This project asks whether discarded PVC and synthetic rubber can be chemically "upcycled" into useful small molecules at mild temperatures and normal pressure. If so, plastic waste could become a feedstock for chemicals that today come from petroleum.
Why it matters
Turning PVC and rubber waste into dienes and alkanes could divert hard-to-recycle plastic from landfills and reduce environmental contamination. It could also give the chemical industry a non-petroleum feedstock with low energy costs and minimal greenhouse gas emissions. Running alkene formation together with metathesis may also prove useful in organic synthesis beyond plastics.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Xiaodong Shi
University of Maryland, MD·Chemistry
Optimize triazole-ruthenium carbene (TA-Ru) catalysts, whose triazole ligands improve heat stability, for olefin metathesis reactions that previous catalysts handled poorly, including high-temperature transformations.
Michael Young
University of Toledo, OH·Chemistry·Early-career
Develop regioselective arylation of free amine-tethered internal alkenes with aryl halides, using transient directing groups (temporary guiding groups for the catalyst) and changes in reaction conditions to control which carbon is functionalized.
Qibin Zhang
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, NC·Chemistry
Extend OzNOxESI, an ion reaction inside a mass spectrometer that reveals double-bond positions, from phospholipids to all lipid classes, especially glycerolipids and sphingolipids.
The school
University of California-Santa Cruz: 15 labs on PI Pages, $218M a year on research, 183 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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