Eric Cochran
Iowa State University, IA·Materials Science
Most plastics come from petroleum and are hard to recycle, especially once different plastics are mixed together. Plastics, coatings, adhesives and composites made from crops and wood offer a renewable alternative, but industry needs reliable data on how these materials are made, processed and handled at end of life before adopting them widely.
- Fields
Materials Science
Engineering
Chemistry
- Topics
bioplastics
biocomposites
bio-based polymers
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2028
What they work on
- Develop the science of recycling and end-of-life treatment for bio-based plastics and composites, especially when mixed with petrochemical plastics, including chemical recycling and upcycling routes.
- Convert agricultural biomass into new monomers and polymers, the building blocks and long chains that make up plastics, aimed at packaging and construction materials markets.
- Develop bio-based adhesives and coatings and generate reliable, standardized materials and processing data that industry partners can use for large-scale implementation.
- Build fundamental knowledge of the synthesis, processing, properties and compounding of bioplastic and biocomposite materials across the center's partner institutions.
More about the research
This work is part of the Center for Bioplastics and Biocomposites (CB2), an Industry/University Cooperative Research Center shared by Iowa State, the University of Georgia, Washington State and North Dakota State. The center aims to build fundamental knowledge of how bioplastics and biocomposites are synthesized, processed, compounded and characterized, and to produce standardized materials and processing data for industry partners. Its current phase emphasizes recycling and end-of-life treatment of sustainable materials, particularly when they are blended with petrochemical plastics. The Iowa State portion covers converting agricultural biomass into useful products, developing new monomers (the small building-block molecules of plastics) and the polymers made from them, creating adhesives and coatings, pursuing chemical recycling and upcycling, and targeting packaging and construction markets. The grant states that undergraduate and graduate students take part in the center's research on sustainable materials.
Why it matters
Bio-based plastics, coatings and adhesives that run on existing manufacturing equipment could cut reliance on petroleum and open new markets for farm and woody crops, supporting rural development and manufacturing jobs. Better understanding of how to recycle bio-based materials, including mixtures with conventional plastics, could help manufacturers and recyclers manage these products at end of life.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Karl Englund
Washington State University, WA·Materials Science
Develop bio-based composites, coatings, adhesives and polymers on industry-relevant technology platforms, targeting materials compatible with current manufacturing systems used by center member companies.
Anqi Ji
Howard University, DC·Materials Science
Chemically modify biomass systematically and characterize it at multiple scales to link biomass structure to interfacial adhesion with polymer matrices in manufactured composites.
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.
The school
Iowa State University: 23 labs on PI Pages, $462M a year on research, 327 research doctorates a year.
Reach out
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