Kristopher Waynant
University of Idaho, ID·Chemistry
Designing small molecules that grab onto other substances in controlled ways links two practical problems. One is recovering valuable metals from discarded electronics without harsh chemicals.
- Fields
Chemistry
Materials Science
Engineering
- Topics
e-waste recycling
metal recovery
precious metals
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Design azothioformamide-based redox-active ligands that oxidatively dissolve zerovalent metals from e-waste, and identify which structural features control dissolution and metal selectivity using combined computation and experiment.
- Recover dissolved metals by electrochemical or chemical reduction while regenerating the ligands, toward a circular, sustainable metal recycling process.
- Synthesize a library of peptide-based zwitterionic cross-linkers that vary in length, chemistry, charge spacing, charge density and side chains, and build them into polyampholyte hydrogels.
- Relate cross-linker structure to hydrogel protein resistance, signaling-molecule delivery, mechanical properties and degradation to define design rules for bioadaptable biomaterials.
More about the research
The other is building water-rich gels the body will accept. Both projects use synthetic organic chemistry to make tailored molecules and then relate their structure to how they perform.
Why it matters
A mild, ligand-based process could let recyclers recover precious and critical metals from e-waste with less harsh chemistry and reusable reagents. Tunable hydrogels that resist protein fouling and deliver biological signals could serve as better biomaterials for treating injury, disease and impairment, with fewer problems of rejection by the body.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Christopher Graves
Swarthmore College, PA·Chemistry
Synthesize group 13 metal complexes (boron, aluminum, gallium, indium) of tripodal nitroxide ligands, (RTriNOx3–)M, with systematically varied electron-donating and electron-withdrawing substituents.
Paul Chirik
Princeton University, NJ·Chemistry
Discover robust iron and cobalt catalyst precursors in several oxidation states, using oxidatively-induced reductive elimination and arene displacement from metal sandwich compounds.
Xiaobo Chen
University of Missouri-Kansas City, MO·Chemistry
Design and synthesize three series of triazine-crosslinked polyethyleneimine (TCPEI) porous polymers with very different distributions of amine nitrogen types.
The school
University of Idaho: 8 labs on PI Pages, $140M a year on research, 71 research doctorates a year.
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