Sergiy Minko
University of Georgia, GA·Materials Science
Engineered polymer surfaces and polymer chemistry sit at the center of both projects here, applied to two very different problems: replacing petroleum plastics with materials made from plant waste, and sorting living cells without antibodies. In both cases the common thread is controlling what happens at an interface, and in both, ultrasound or switchable polymer layers are used to do work that normally requires harsh chemistry or mechanical force.
- Fields
Materials Science
Chemistry
Engineering
- Topics
bioplastics
lignocellulose
ultrasonic processing
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Develop ultrasonic processing that functionalizes and polymerizes lignocellulosic ingredients from biomass and industrial waste at 25-50 degrees C, avoiding the degradation and energy cost of conventional 200-280 degrees C polycondensation.
- Test whether ultrasonication of colloidal plant-derived components generates nanoscale microstructures that improve the barrier and thermo-mechanical properties of the resulting biobased copolymers.
- Determine whether the resulting bioplastics retain the natural biodegradation routes of their plant ingredients and can substitute for polyolefins, polyesters and polystyrene in packaging, fibers and commodity plastics.
- Engineer nanostructured polymer interfaces combining static adhesive patches with thermosensitive patches that switch between swollen and condensed states around their lower critical solution temperature, near cell culture temperature.
- Test whether osmotic force generated by cycling temperature across the phase transition can desorb weakly bound mammalian cells and sort cell mixtures by surface affinity without antibodies, verified with model cellular mixes.
- Design the sorting interfaces using atomistic molecular dynamics simulations combined with coarse-grained modeling to predict cell-surface interactions and desorption behavior.
More about the research
About 85% of today's polymer materials are petroleum-based thermoplastics that break down slowly in the environment and shed toxic substances and microplastic particles. One project, a joint US-UK effort, develops a low-temperature route to bioplastics made from lignocellulosic ingredients, the structural components of plant cell walls, sourced from agricultural and food residues, paper, fiber, cellophane and biofuel refinery side streams. The obstacle is that once these components are separated from biomass they dissolve in almost nothing, so industry normally modifies them in harsh, energy-hungry conditions, often as messy mixtures of solids and liquids. The project applies high-intensity ultrasound to accelerate reactions among suspended colloidal particles, allowing the plant components to be chemically functionalized and polymerized into copolymers without first being degraded. Reactions run at 25-50 degrees C instead of the 200-280 degrees C used in conventional polycondensation, for much shorter times, cutting energy use and unwanted side reactions. Ultrasound is also expected to generate nanoscale microstructures that improve the resulting bioplastics' resistance to gas and moisture and their thermal and mechanical performance. The target is recyclable or compostable materials that keep the natural biodegradation routes of their plant ingredients and could substitute for polyolefins, polyesters and polystyrene in flexible food packaging, fabrics and commodity plastics.
Why it matters
Plastic waste from packaging, fabrics and commodity plastics is a major source of landfill and ocean contamination and of microplastics. A low-temperature ultrasonic route to compostable or recyclable bioplastics made from agricultural and industrial residues could lower both the energy cost and the carbon dioxide emissions of making these materials. Separately, a gentle, antibody-free way to sort cells could make manufacturing cell therapies cheaper and safer by removing damaged or tumorigenic cells with less cell loss.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Anqi Ji
Howard University, DC·Materials Science
Chemically modify biomass systematically and characterize it at multiple scales to link biomass structure to interfacial adhesion with polymer matrices in manufactured composites.
Ting Ge
University of South Carolina-Columbia, SC·Materials Science·Early-career
Determine how ring polymer topologies, including non-concatenated loops, rings threaded by linear chains, and interlocked "Olympic" rings, form as a function of experimentally controllable parameters such as ring size and linear chain content, using coarse-grained molecular simulations with topological analysis.
Charles Sing
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Engineering
Use hybrid polymer field theory informed by particle simulations to test how steric repulsion and hydrophobic interactions control coacervation between polycations and surfactant micelles.
The school
University of Georgia: 27 labs on PI Pages, $628M a year on research, 598 research doctorates a year.
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