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SUMMARY:Plastic Deconstruction and Redesign in the BOTTLE Consortium
LOCATION:Chemistry A101
TZID:America/Denver
DTSTART:20230404T160000
UID:2026-04-22-05-11-30@natsci.colostate.edu
DTSTAMP:20260422T051130
Description:Seminar organized by ACS POLY/PMSE Student Chapter\n\nAbout the
  Seminar\n\nThe plastic pollution crisis is also an energy crisis with an 
 estimated 20% of fossil fuel consumption going towards plastic production 
 by the year 2050. Current polymerization processes do not offer much poten
 tial for efficiency improvements and energy demand reduction. Additionally
 \, only mechanical recycling is employed at scale\, which has limited life
  cycles due to contamination and degradation of the polymer. Thus\, the mo
 st promising decarbonization options for the U.S. plastic industry involve
  system-wide changes and the integration of a bio-/waste-based supply chai
 n with a plastic-to-plastic circular economy loop based on innovative recy
 cling techniques to recover the plastic waste. The Bio-Optimized Technolog
 ies to keep Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE™
 ) Consortium is a U.S. Department of Energy multi-organization consortium 
 focused on developing new chemical upcycling strategies for today\\'s plas
 tics and redesigning tomorrow\\'s plastics to be recyclable-by-design (RBD
 ). This talk will highlight flagship BOTTLE technologies in low-energy pla
 stic deconstruction\, upcycling strategies for the waste intermediates\, a
 nd promising RBD polymers that may challenge the current plastic industry.
 \n\nAbout the Speaker\n\nKat Knauer is a polymer scientist who has dedicat
 ed her scientific career to solving the plastic waste problem. She has a P
 hD in polymer science and engineering from the University of Southern Miss
 issippi and completed the BASF PhD Leadership Development Program (LDP) in
  2018 before taking a senior scientist role in BASF’s plastics division.
  Her research efforts focused on advanced recycling technologies which ult
 imately led her to leading materials innovation R&amp\;D at Novoloop (form
 erly BioCellection)\, a San Francisco Bay area chemical recycling startup.
  Recently\, Knauer joined the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 
 as the chief technology officer of the Bio-Optimized Technologies to keep
  Thermoplastics out of Landfills and the Environment (BOTTLE) Consortium 
 where she is developing sustainable technologies to chemically upcycle tod
 ay’s existing plastic waste streams and develop new plastics for the fut
 ure that are inherently recyclable by design. 4:00 pm
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