This accolade recognizes outstanding community leadership, with a special emphasis on excellence in educating youth and the public about materials science, bio-plastics, and plastic pollution. The teen teachers earned commendation for their remarkable efforts in environmental education, particularly in safeguarding Minnesota’s waters and lands.

Furthermore, the group has been selected to present at the National 4-H Ignite conference in Washington DC for the second consecutive year. At the conference, they will lead workshops on leveraging art to address plastic pollution, impacting approximately 80 teens nationwide.

Congratulations!

More on this story: https://www.mncounties.org/partners/u_of_m_extension/4h_community_leadership_awards.php

Image courtesy of University of Minnesota Extension

The lab, built around the synthesis of biodegradable calcium alginate capsules prepared from food-safe chemicals, gained notoriety from local TV station and newspaper.

This is not the first time that the curriculum has been used abroad. In 2022, Assistant Professor Louis Pitet from Hasselt University, implemented the same activity with nearly 150 high school students. 

Learn more by visiting the Dutch News Website TVL.

Listen to this story on  SBS News Australia.

Carba’s scientists and engineers have developed a process to use plants to suck carbon dioxide out of the air and convert their waste to a recalcitrant solid carbon, then sequestering carbon underground to stabilize it. 

Congratulations Professor Dauenhauer and team!

Read more about this story at the CEMS website.

Read more:

• C&En: Firms plan pilot plants for biobased acrylic acid
• CSP: Låkril Technologies Launches to Commercialize Sustainable Acrylics
• Låkril Technologies

For more details and a complete list of 2024 award recipients, visit the the UC Berkeley College of Chemistry website and the ACS Announcement on C&EN News.

Congratulations Professor Chang!

The article covers a range of highlights from the CSP over the past year:

• Floral Foam Company with CSP Connections Wins MN Cup– BKB Floral Foam Inc., a local startup and 2022 MN Cup winner, looks to disrupt an estimated $500 million market for floral foam. CSP researchers partnered with BKB Floral Foam founders Dundee and Ian Butcher to develop these renewable and biodegradable foams. CSP alum David Goldfeld is the CTO of the venture, supporting the commercialization of the technology that came from CSP research.
• Valerian Materials Awarded a BioMADE Technology and Innovation Project at White House Summit–  Valerian Materials, a spin-off company founded in 2015 based on research out of the CSP (by Dr. Kechun Zhang, Dr. Frank Bates, and Dr. Marc Hillmyer), was awarded a Biomade Technology And Innovation Project for $1.2 million in 2022 at the White House Summit. The aim of this project is to optimize the fermentation and downstream processing of betamethylvalerolactone, eventually incorporating it into sustainable and bio-derived elastomers, foams, and adhesives.
• Låkril Technologies Launches to Commercialize Sustainable Acrylics– Låkril Technologies, a start-up company launched by CSP Investigator Paul Dauenhauer in 2021, aims to commercialize sustainable acrylics at prices that compete with petroleum using traditional chemical refining approaches.

In the MSPBJ article, CSP Director Marc Hillmyer notes that along with these achievements he aims to build on the interest in this topic: “I want to continue to … bring more to the intersection of sustainable science and economics as we move forward in this space.”

Read the full story on the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal website and check out the CSP cover for the digital edition.

This episode talks about the demand for rare earth metals, their role in combatting climate change, and the future of sourcing them.

Listen or download the radio episode from the SETI Institute.

CSP Investigator, and Pang’s faculty advisor, Paul Dauenhauer states in the article: “Yutong’s brilliant insight and determination to this problem help us make a giant leap forward beyond existing chemistry and into the realm of economically viable sustainable materials.” Acrylic acid, which is used to make many types of plastics, coatings, and paints, is typically made from petroleum. Researchers have been trying to find a more sustainable way to manufacture it for years. Pang discovered a substance that when added to the chemical reaction, was able to suppress an unwanted side reaction, paving the way for a more sustainable and economically efficient way to produce acrylic materials.

Yutong spoke with CSE News about her decision to come to the University of Minnesota, and about the collaborative environment CEMS faculty foster in their department. An environment that she credits for preparing her to work in the fundamentals of chemical engineering.

Photo credit: Yutong Pang

As the article states, Dauenhauer was recently named one of 21 MacArthur fellows and has dedicated his career to revolutionizing materials that we rely on most. The products many of us purchase on a regular basis — the water bottles, clothes and, perhaps especially in the era of COVID, take-out containers from our local restaurants — are often plastic, disposable and bound to outlive us for generations. But the enormous amount of plastic waste that humans leave behind is a logistical and ecological nightmare, and experts say potential solutions must be approached from multiple angles, both for the planet’s sake and for our own.

Dauenhauer spoke to the PBS NewsHour about the major challenges we face when it comes to fully pivoting away from fossil fuels, and how he and his colleagues are working to engineer sustainable solutions that benefit consumers, manufacturers and our planet.

Read the full article and Q & A on PBS.

Photo credit PBS NewsHour