Lauren Pincus
George Washington University, DC·Earth & Environmental Science
Plastics left in sunlight slowly break down as ultraviolet (UV) light creates free radicals, highly reactive molecules that trigger a chain of oxidation reactions. These reactions alter the plastic's molecular structure and surface chemistry, a growing concern.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Chemistry
Materials Science
- Topics
plastic degradation
photodegradation
photo-oxidation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jun 2029
What they work on
- Isolate how specific UV-generated free radicals control the rate of photo-oxidation in polyethylene, polystyrene and PET, tracking both intermediate and final oxidation products in controlled experiments.
- Determine whether water and humidity promote or hinder particular photo-oxidation pathways and the intermediates and products they form in these plastics.
- Map nanoscale variation in plastic photo-oxidation using synchrotron spectro-microscopy, which uses intense X-rays to image chemical changes at very small scales.
More about the research
Yet scientists still poorly understand how specific free radicals and water or humidity steer which intermediate and final products form. Without that knowledge, it is hard to predict how plastics degrade.
Why it matters
Predicting how polyethylene, polystyrene and PET break down in sunlight would help explain how plastic waste changes in the environment. A mechanistic picture of photo-oxidation could also support the design of better polymer materials whose degradation can be anticipated.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
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.
Michele Sarazen
Princeton University, NJ·Engineering·Early-career
Make hierarchical bifunctional zeolites, which combine tiny and larger pores with metal and acid sites, and test how their pore structure and connectivity change rates of polyolefin hydrocracking and catalyst deactivation.
Mahamud Subir
Ball State University, IN·Chemistry
Determine thermodynamic and kinetic adsorption parameters of charged and neutral organic probe molecules at micro- and nano-plastic/water interfaces, using surface-selective second harmonic generation (SHG) spectroscopy and quartz crystal microbalance measurements.
The school
George Washington University: 13 labs on PI Pages, $382M a year on research, 225 research doctorates a year.
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