报告人：Prof. Eugene Chen
Design Principles and Synthetic Methodologies in the New Era of Polymer Science
Facing mounting environmental pollution, societal outcry, and regulatory pressure, polymer science is now at a crossroads. The large majority of today's commodity polymers were invented almost a century ago (e.g., polyamides or nylons and polyesters in the 1930’s and polyolefins in the 1950’s) and were further developed for capability, durability, scalability, profitability, and disposability, rather than for renewability, recyclability, and biodegradability. The failure to address the latter three fronts by the traditionally practiced linear economic model has not only accelerated the depletion of finite natural resources but also caused severe global plastic pollution and enormous loss of energy and material value to the economy. It is also important to recognize that this global plastics problem is a trifecta, concerning not just environment, widely known as plastics pollution, but also energy and climate, as the global production of plastics is predicted to consume about 20% of oil and contribute to about 15% of carbon budget by 2050.
Eugene Chen received his undergraduate education and master degree in China. He earned his Ph.D. degree from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1995. After a postdoctoral stint at Northwestern University, he joined The Dow Chemical Company in late 1997, where he was promoted to Project Leader. He moved to Colorado State University as Assistant Professor in August 2000 and rose through the ranks to become Associate Professor in 2006 and Full Professor in 2009. He has been appointed as the Millennial Professor of Polymer Science and Sustainability since 2012, the John K. Stille Endowed Chair Professor in Chemistry since 2017, and a University Distinguished Professor since 2020. His current research is centered on polymer science, sustainable chemistry, and molecular catalysis. Selected honors and awards related to this lecture topics include: Excellence in Commercialization Award in 2012 by the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association; the Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award in 2015 by the US Government’s Environmental Protection Agency; and the Arthur Cope Mid-Career Scholar Award in 2019 by the American Chemical Society.
