From Immediate Grits to Polymers: Scientist Kat Knauer Is Laser Centered on Plastics Air pollution

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Polymer Scientist Applies Scientific Methodology To Clear up Biggest Environmental Challenges Whereas Making Lives Higher

Kat Knauer loved science courses as a younger lady however her understanding that science may very well be used as an instrument for good was solidified when a beloved member of the family grew in poor health.

Her childhood canine, Penny, was having a extreme response to the pesticides her mom utilized to fireside ant mounds dotting the panorama round their south Florida residence. Knauer turned involved for Penny’s well being and turned to the scientific methodology for potential options.

For her science truthful undertaking that 12 months, she selected to display and take a look at environmentally pleasant strategies for fireplace ant extermination. The best methodology for dispatching fireplace ants to the afterlife? That ubiquitous southern staple, prompt grits. She found, amongst different issues, that the tiny ant our bodies couldn’t deal with the excessive sodium content material or fast growth of powdered prompt grits.

She ended up profitable the science truthful. Then she received the state science truthful. Knauer grew shocked after which intrigued that her pals, household, lecturers, and group had been excited concerning the science outcomes.

The influence surrounding her experiment offered the younger Knauer with an impression that science may remedy our hardest environmental issues whereas making individuals’s (and pets’) lives higher.

Right now, Knauer remains to be pushed to unveil scientific options to resolve challenges for not solely her family members but additionally the entire world itself. As a polymer scientist and the chief expertise officer of the NREL-led Bio-Optimized Applied sciences to maintain Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Atmosphere (BOTTLE™) consortium, Knauer is accountable for serving to remedy one of many world’s best challenges—plastic air pollution.

BOTTLE is a multiorganization consortium supported by the U.S. Division of Power’s Bioenergy Applied sciences Workplace and Superior Supplies and Manufacturing Applied sciences Workplace. The consortium is concentrated on creating new chemical upcycling methods for at present’s plastics and redesigning tomorrow’s plastics to be recyclable by design.

Within the interview beneath (edited for size and readability), Knauer mentioned the evolution of her profession and the way NREL, the BOTTLE crew, and its dedicated companions are obsessed with discovering science-based options to our plastics waste downside.

Inform me what led you to be a polymer scientist centered on our plastics downside?

My success on the science truthful was definitely an affect, and as I grew older it turned clear that I actually loved math and chemistry. When it got here time for college, I selected chemical engineering as a result of it appeared like this good mixture of calculus and chemistry.

I used to be all the time obsessed with environmentalism. Whereas at Florida State College I used to be lucky to do polymer analysis at a brand new campus institute centered on supplies science. There I discovered that polymers had been the first elements of plastics.

I additionally got here to comprehend that we had this huge plastic waste downside polluting the planet, and polymers had been the basis explanation for it. But polymers and polymer chemistry have made the world a greater place and have improved the standard of life for many of society in some ways. However polymers aren’t dangerous. It’s simply that we’ve abused them.

We’ve tasks as scientists to discover a resolution for plastic waste mitigation, and I felt like if I obtained a Ph.D. in polymer chemistry, individuals would take heed to me and assume I used to be an knowledgeable, all of which might assist me make an even bigger influence on our plastics downside.

After your Ph.D. you labored for the non-public sector. How did these experiences influence your profession?

My ideas had been that if I labored for a big plastics and polymer science company, I may begin making an influence instantly by serving to commercialize plastic waste mitigation applied sciences quicker than staying in academia. I began engaged on recycling applied sciences and discovered how recycling can grow to be commercially and economically viable. Nevertheless, I found rapidly that enormous firms will be gradual and danger hostile with boundaries to innovation. I wanted to maneuver quicker.

I made the leap to a startup firm, known as Novoloop, run by this superb group of ladies and helped develop a chemical recycling pathway for hard-to-recycle movie waste, like grocery baggage and pallet shrink wrap. The pathway we developed oxidized that movie waste right down to helpful constructing blocks to make new polymer supplies. And this polymer—a thermoplastic polyurethane or TPU—that I labored on for a few years has reached industrial viability as the only real of a operating shoe.

That’s good to see all that tough work flip right into a sustainable, industrial product.

Sure, the best half is that we had been taking one thing that’s thought of single use and so low worth like a grocery bag and making it into a cloth that’s now going into $200 trainers. That is upcycling at its most interesting.

So, your transition from the non-public to public sector was finalized by incomes the chief expertise officer (CTO) position for BOTTLE, which has a pleasant ring to it.

Sure, undoubtedly.

What made NREL and BOTTLE appear to be a superb match?

I liked my time at Novoloop. It’s the place I actually turned a greater chemist. I additionally skilled the pivotal strategy of commercialization by taking an thought from bench scale to an actual product. But, after experiencing the manufacturing of recycled TPU for a operating shoe, I spotted I needed to work on a large number of applied sciences and make an even bigger dent in as some ways doable. I needed to analysis your entire plastics waste stream and provide chain.

Whereas at Novoloop, I attended the Nationwide Academies’ Chemical Sciences Roundtable the place they invited scientists to speak concerning the plastic waste downside. Gregg Beckham, senior analysis fellow at NREL, spoke on the roundtable and laid out his imaginative and prescient for a brand new plastics upcycling consortium, what would grow to be BOTTLE. I used to be excited concerning the potential. This was what I needed to do.

Gregg and I spoke, and he inspired me to do a seminar at NREL. I did, and once I was right here, I knew that is the place I needed to be. The individuals right here, the caliber of labor that was happening, and Gregg’s imaginative and prescient for BOTTLE had been aligned with my mission and targets as a scientist.

Over the subsequent two years, BOTTLE turned actual. That’s when Gregg reached again out to me, and we began speaking about how I may grow to be concerned. Our conversations advanced into the CTO position.

It looks like all the pieces aligned properly between your self and NREL. What are your core tasks as BOTTLE CTO?

This can be a distinctive position in that it’s a hybrid—I’m half enterprise growth (BD) and half researcher. I handle strategic exterior partnerships by creating, defining, and main particular analysis tasks with these accomplice firms. For the BD half, I present U.S. and world firms how BOTTLE applied sciences can meet their sustainability or plastics circularity wants. I additionally outline with them what a undertaking at NREL would seem like and the outputs we may realistically ship to them.

For the researcher half, as soon as we now have a undertaking settlement, I then pull a crew collectively and begin executing and dealing on that expertise for the consumer.

My analysis falls in larger expertise readiness degree (TRL) ranges. Every thing I do with BOTTLE appears to be like at DOE-funded applied sciences with a TRL of perhaps 3. I take these to strategic companions and say, with this a lot cash we may get you as much as TRL 6, pre-pilot degree, and we can assist you deploy and commercialize.

We’ve a various portfolio of commercial partnerships, all various kinds of tasks with some hitting the deployment section. We’re additionally spinning off startup firms. We’re extremely centered on making these plastic applied sciences part of the U.S. financial system as rapidly as doable.

Talking of these partnerships, I’ve heard that you just’re a tremendous recruiter of BOTTLE trade companions. Are you able to share with us any secret sauce to your success?

It’s not one thing scientists all the time love to listen to, however you do must be personable to get these firms to wish to discuss to you. As well as, I’ve the backing of NREL and all the nice applied sciences and fame that comes with this group. However I additionally assume an enormous a part of that is that I’m brutally clear and trustworthy with these firms. I’m very lifelike with them and upfront with what’s doable. I additionally discuss prices instantly in order that they’re not shocked and shocked later. I believe firms admire this transparency.

Additionally, the mannequin we’ve adopted in BOTTLE, which I alluded to earlier than, is that after executing that settlement, I don’t disappear. I stay their level particular person. I lead the undertaking and I mentor the researchers and the postdocs, and I write the papers and I make the displays. I believe a constant line of communication with the individual that constructed up this belief with them is one thing they’ve actually come to worth. And I actually admire it.

BOTTLE has been up and operating for a bit. What are some huge challenges you’ve overcome?

At BOTTLE we now have two challenges occurring in tandem. One is how you can recycle at present’s waste as effectively as doable with the best financial profit and the bottom environmental footprint. The opposite is how you can rethink waste as a result of the plastics used at present had been by no means designed to disintegrate. That is redesigning and making new supplies for the longer term which are extra inherently recyclable by design, biocompatible, biobased, and doubtlessly biodegradable.

At first, we pitched firms on how they may redesign their materials and packaging in a sustainable approach. The businesses weren’t receptive. They had been thinking about simply recycling their plastic trash at present. I do assume that the true resolution is popping it off on the faucet by redesign moderately than simply maintain making as a lot as we’re doing now the identical precise approach and hoping a market evolves to recycle it.

So how did you persuade these firms to work on redesigning their plastics?

Once we found that we may redesign these merchandise at value or barely above, that’s when it shifted, and extra firms began listening. Our first huge win we had was with The North Face, who’s funding a undertaking to switch the present polyester fiber used of their attire gear with a biobased polyester that will probably be simply as strong however has a biodegradation pathway.

And that’s not as a result of we wish clothes to biodegrade. Round 46% of microplastics within the surroundings come from plastic fibers which are shed throughout garments washing. As a substitute of determining how you can cease all shedding as a result of individuals aren’t going to cease washing their garments, we pitched the corporate on redesigning their materials to be pure, biocompatible, and never persist within the surroundings for 400 years.

OK, one final query. In the event you had been queen for a day and had limitless energy to make one change on the planet, what wouldn’t it be?

There are these little plastic packages that maintain a small serving of mustard or ketchup for instance. These sachet packets are probably the most over engineered supplies on the planet with one thing like eight completely different layers of fully various kinds of polymers or metals and are unrecyclable. In locations like Indonesia and the Philippines these little sachets make up practically 50% of their waste streams. So, I might make a recycling financial system infrastructure for these sachet packets based mostly on materials that’s recyclable and extremely desired.

Be taught extra about NREL’s bioenergy analysis and BOTTLE options to mitigate plastic waste air pollution.

Courtesy of NREL. By Justin Rickard