Redesigning Polymers to Leverage A Circular Economy (RePLACE)

The 2020 BES Report, Roundtable on Chemical Upcycling of Polymers, identified Priority Research Opportunities (PROs) to address end-of-life issues for today's polymers and the design of tomorrow's polymers for chemical circularity. The need to design polymers for chemical recyclability was also emphasized in the 2020 NAS Proceedings on Closing the Loop on the Plastics Dilemma. Solving the recyclability problem for synthetic polymers will require designing chemical circularity into polymer properties. Solving the recyclability challenge for synthetic polymers will require designing chemical circularity into polymer properties. To enable fundamental knowledge to realize such circular polymers (CPs), we propose a synergistic team focused on Redesigning Polymers to Leverage A Circular Economy (RePLACE).