Center for Plastics Innovation (CPI)

Director
LaShanda Korley
Lead Institution
University of Delaware
Class
2020-2024
Mission
To develop catalytic and functionalization approaches and fundamental tools applicable to the upcycling of polymer plastics waste, with a strategic focus on enabling mixed-stream transformations from varied material form factors.
Research Topics
catalysis (heterogeneous), polymer upcycling, mechanical behavior, mesoscale science, materials and chemistry by design, synthesis (novel systems), synthesis (scalable processing)
Systems Studied
Systems: polymer, biological
Interfaces: organic/inorganic, organic/organic, gas/solid
Nanostructured: None
Experimental and Theoretical Methods
X-ray diffraction and scattering, X-ray imaging, X-ray spectroscopy, neutron diffraction and scattering, electron microscopy, scanning probe microscopy, surface science, high-throughput screening methods, molecular dynamics (MD), density functional theory (DFT), monte carlo (MC), finite element methods, mesoscale modeling, multiscale modeling, machine learning, data science

Partner Institutions
- Oak Ridge National Laboratory
- University of Chicago
- University of Delaware
- University of Massachusetts Amherst
- University of Pennsylvania