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SUMMARY:IMX Colloquium - Polymers for people and planet - from solving pro
 blems in the lab to solving problems in the world
DTSTART:20260427T131500
DTEND:20260427T141500
DTSTAMP:20260501T002357Z
UID:567609e3f3b8ed0f1eb6bad1983f048e8609dfb038621e87354646b1
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Jan-Georg Rosenboom\, MIT / MacroCycle\, USA  \nWhat doe
 s it take to bring polymer science from the lab to industrial scale manufa
 cturing? In this talk we will explore the science behind plastic recycling
  technologies\, what you didn't know about the textiles you're wearing\, w
 hy scaling tough tech (technologies requiring machinery and chemical react
 ions) is hard but exciting\, and how to convince investors to give you sta
 rtup money to solve the hairy problem of making a 400 million tons of poly
 mers produced per year from plastic waste instead of crude oil. Disruptive
  "clean" technologies need to not only save resources and emissions\, they
  also need to make money. In the example of PET recycling for polyester te
 xtiles and bottles\, molecular weight can be built exploiting macrocyclic 
 chemistry\, which saves energy by avoiding depolymerization. Impurities su
 ch as elastane\, dyes\, halogens\, polyolefins all need to be removed effe
 ctively to afford a pure polymer as a drop-in solution for existing indust
 ries to adopt quickly. The manufacturing needs to scale and reach price pa
 rity with oil-based solutions. Luckily the chemistries and unit operations
  once developed for oil + gas processing can be used to usher in a new era
  of polymer manufacturing that is independent of geopolitically and enviro
 nmentally troublesome crude\, which our civilization has a love-hate-relat
 ionship with.\n\n	\n	https://www.nature.com/articles/s41578-021-00407-8 (
 Circular polymers review) \n	\n	\n	https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467
 -018-05147-y (Ring-opening polymerization for polyester \n	\n\n\nBio: Dr
 . Jan-Georg Rosenboom is a Chemical Engineer and Science Entrepreneur at t
 he interface of Polymer Science and Technology Commercialization. He holds
  a PhD from ETH Zurich\, where he developed ring-chain equilibrium process
 es for the synthesis of aromatic polyesters with precise molecular weight 
 control in Prof. Massimo Morbidelli's group. He then pursued postdoctoral 
 work with Profs. Robert Langer and Giovanni Traverso at MIT\, continuing c
 ircular polymerization work and expanding into biomedical polymer applicat
 ions such as polyester-based immunotherapy delivering hydrogels and PET-ba
 sed weight loss devices. Jan-Georg's passion to solve actual problems with
  science led to the formation of a PET and textile recycling startup calle
 d MacroCycle Technologies\, for which he serves as CTO. MacroCycle's paten
 ted “SolvoGenesis” process isolates and upgrades PET polyester from te
 xtile waste without requiring  expensive depolymerization most other comp
 anies follow. Part of his postdoctoral work on immunotherapy delivery is b
 eing commercialized by Absco Therapeutics\, for which he serves as advisor
 . Jan-Georg is excited about polymers and how their properties and manufac
 turing can be leveraged to solve big problems in the world. Besides work\,
  he likes to go rowing and tries to evolve his drone photography skills fr
 om crashing to filming.\n 
LOCATION:MXF 1 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==MXF%201
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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