Sustainable Polymer Materials

This course will focus on the question how the current oil-based polymer industry that produces non-degradable polymers that accumulate in our environment in massive quantities can be transformed in an industry that is green, sustainable and fits in a more circular economy. In this course we will provide background regarding(the 12 principles of) Green Chemistry. Various metrics that are used to quantify the greenness and sustainability of a process or a product will be introduced and discussed. We will make an inventory regarding the current practice in polymer manufacturing and polymer waste treatment. Subsequently we will introduce various scenarios towards (more) sustainable polymers, and discuss the pros and cons of these approaches.