Abstract

Recycling mixed plastic waste remains an unsolved challenge in materials science, largely because the constituent polymers resist blending into useful materials due to their thermodynamic incompatibility. Overcoming this challenge requires controlling the phase behavior of multicomponent polymer mixtures, a long-standing goal in soft matter. My research integrates theory and computation to identify and design molecular handles to control soft material assembly and transport. In this talk, I will discuss how functionalization with associative groups provides a versatile handle to control polymer blend thermodynamics. I will demonstrate how local associations alter polymer topology, giving rise to network thermodynamics that deviate from classical gelation theories, and how these associations compatibilize polymer blends, establishing design rules for recycling mixed plastic waste.

Bio

Chris Balzer is a postdoctoral researcher in the Materials Research Lab at UC Santa Barbara with Prof. Glenn Fredrickson. His work combines statistical mechanics and computational science to study polymer self-assembly, thermodynamics of charged systems, and interfacial behavior of complex fluids, with the goal of engineering soft materials that are safe, renewable, and reusable. Chris has received several awards during his research career, including being recognized as a Rising Star in Soft and Biological Matter, a DOE Computational Science Graduate Fellow, and a Churchill Scholar.

Chris earned all of his degrees in chemical engineering: Caltech (PhD), University of Cambridge (MPhil), and Arizona State University (BSE).

https://chrisbalzer.github.io/.

Hosted by: Glenn Fredrickson