Polymers are being used for non-stick coatings, anti-fouling technology, precision drug delivery, medical diagnosis, imaging, and many other applications.
Cyrille uses light to make new and complex polymers. Credit: Prime Minister’s Prizes for Science/WildBear
Associate Professor Cyrille Boyer’s ideas are built on the revolutionary RAFT techniques (a technique to precisely control how small molecules are linked together to form large polymer chains) for which Professor David Solomon and Dr Ezio Rizzardo received the 2011 Prime Minister’s Prize for Science. His latest technology uses light and chlorophyll to catalyse the production of polymers.
Melbourne-based manufacturing company RMAX is working with CSIRO to make a sustainable, and biodegradable, version of a product involved in the life-cycle of many of the things we buy.
The prototype biodegradable polymer box (on the left) alongside a standard expanded polystyrene box. Credit: Gary Toikka, CSIRO
They hope to cut the environmental impact of the nine thousand tonnes of expanded polystyrene (EPS) that ends up in Australian landfill every year. Continue reading Next generation packaging→
Many plastics and polymers—including paints, glues and lubricants—will be transformed in the coming years by the work of Australian chemists, Professors David Solomon and Ezio Rizzardo.
David Solomon (left) and Ezio Rizzardo (right) with Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Credit: Prime Minister’s Science Prizes/Irene Dowdy
Their work is integral to more than 500 patents and their techniques are used in the labs and factories of DuPont, L’Oréal, IBM, 3M, Dulux and more than 60 other companies.
Eventually, the pair’s chemical theories and processes will influence hundreds of products.
New lubricants containing star-shaped polymers have hit the market, thanks to Australian polymer technology. Lubrizol Corporation has launched the first commercial products developed using CSIRO’s Reversible Addition Fragmentation chain Transfer (RAFT) polymer synthesis process.
Asteric ™ Viscosity Modifiers are tailor-made star-shaped polymers made possible by RAFT Credit: Lubrizol
CSIRO chemist Dr Ezio Rizzardo says the RAFT process allows much greater flexibility and potential for polymer synthesis, compared with conventional methods. “Conventional polymerisation is a relatively simple process with two ingredients: large amounts of monomer and a small amount of an initiating agent. You apply heat; a chain reaction starts and runs to completion, making polymer chains that can have widely varying lengths.” Continue reading Star-shaped polymers boost engine performance→
Sugarcane is one of nature’s most efficient natural converters of sunlight, carbon dioxide and water into fuel or biomass – and as such, it is perhaps the world’s fastest growing and largest biomass agricultural crop.
