Despite their enormous utility and convenience, our love of single use plastic products has resulted in a massive accumulation of plastic waste in the natural environment. An estimated 10 million tons of the approximately 380 million tons of plastic produced annually is leaking into our oceans each year, and unless drastic steps are taken, it is predicted that plastic waste will outweigh fish in the ocean by 2050. Campaigns and regulations to reduce waste generation are important and ever increasing, but changing human behavior is a difficult and slow endeavor. Sustainably-sourced degradable bioplastics can offer a promising contribution to solving the global plastic crisis. My research in the Wooley laboratory at Texas A&M focuses on developing inexpensive, green, and efficient synthetic techniques to transform agricultural waste and other renewable resources into suitable monomers for the manufacture of polymers that will degrade after the end of their useful lifetime. Upon degradation, these bioplastics will regenerate natural monomer building blocks, which are designed to be benign and even beneficial to natural environments in which they may be discarded. This fundamental research and the further development of this technology in our academic laboratory is important, but for the full benefits of these innovations to be realized, translation into practical industrial application is required.  In order to bring our AggiePol<sup>TM</sup> technology to market, two startup ventures, Sugar Plastics, LLC and Teysha Technologies, LTD, have been formed. Teysha currently holds exclusive licenses on two patents covering our bioplastic platform capable of producing materials suitable for a wide range of applications, and is actively engaged in sponsored research at Texas A&M. This synergistic approach, combining the strengths of world class academic researchers and a talented and experienced business team has allowed for the rapid advancement of the platform technology to meet the needs of various potential commercial partners.

Solving the global plastic crisis: translation of polymer research to real world solutions

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.